There is a risk that those with 'degraded' body oxy functions might lose consciousness but I suspect that would be all they suffered for the short time taken going lower.
I agree.
What I am wanting to do is weigh that risk against the risk of other injuries to the passengers ( burst eardrum was the example given) and then decide now, from the comfort of my lounge room chair, whether or not to modify how I plan to fly an emergency descent due depressurisation.
The unconscious pax ( and associated workload for cabin crew) that you mentioned above would be hard to justify if there is no real world examples of injuries to pax caused by maintaining a high ROD between 14,0000ft and 10,000ft.
Righto, time to go to work.
Hope you guys are having a nice day up north.