Andrew Gabriel wrote:

Because of the high velocity of the air from the hand driers, could I
get an embolism through a cut on my hands?

That thought crossed my mind too. Actually you can do it without
any cut if you blast compressed air at your skin -- it will go
through,

Could you point a paper published in a peer-reviewed medical journal
which supports your view that compresed air (let alone high veloicty air
from a hand dryer) can cause an air embolism in such circumstances?

I've performed a reasonably diligent search for evidence to support the
claim and I can find none. I can find the possibility discussed, without
any references, on a Wikipedia page and I can find a reference to an air
embolism being cause by a high-speed cutting too which uses jets of
water powered by compressed air. However that incident actually occured
during surgery when the tool was being used to cut into a human liver.
That's a very different situation to using either a hair dryer or an
8-bar compressed air line.

There are hazards to blowing compressed air onto the skin, venous or
arterial air embolism is not one of them, as far as I can see. I wonder
if the people asserting that such an even is possible have mistaken an
embolism of the colon caused by compressed air for venous/aterial
embolism? An embolism of the colon is a known hazard of misuse of
industrial compressed air, and occurs usually when some idiot thinks it
would be funny to blow air up the arse of someone else.

Anyhow, since you have asserted that compressed air blown on th eskin
can cause an embolism I wonder if you could provide the soruce of your
information? Thanks.