I suspect the best response to that drum would have been a larger containment vessel to let it finish its reaction, even if it melted the drum, to capture any spill and a wet exhaust scrubber system to capture any fumes.
The nitro scenario happened because nobody watched Ghostbusters, they mixed the streams (waste streams that contained nitric acid, glycerine, and some other fun ingredients). I wasn’t certain what they made until I went over what was mixed with Chemtrec’s emergency hotline. Then factory management asked me to move it and leave it for an outside contractor to handle. That’s the downside of being a HazMat grunt. Worker bees don’t have a lot of authority.
I forgot to mention other geniuses who put an HF acid waste stream into a glass container. Nice mess when it ate the glass.
Try to overcharge a lead-acid battery, and then let the hydrogen ignite. Preferably in confined space of the battery room.
Definitely is not. But he survived. With an awful amount of luck.
People can survive a lot of what would look a sure way to the Eternal Lab In the Sky. Plutonium is another material that has a way worse rap than it is, judging from the number of “UPPU club” survivors from the Cold War.
That is true.
You can get a similar (qualitatively, though way way less bad) outcome from a bad slip on the stairs. It took me weeks to months (depending where we put a threshold) to regain shoulder functionality after an injury and that was just a stupid landing. (And it still behaves like a built-in barometer.) Do not run when you don’t have to.
So we get a pretty interesting mix of cases where stupid simple mishap can lead to death, on one end, and on the other end survival cases of bizarre and highly dangerous situations.
Weird world we live in. Interesting one, too.
Doesn’t look that bad to me, though definitely nothing pleasant. The note about calcium chloride being an irritant was good, and explained to me why all the gluconate in all the instructions, thanks. (Now, where to get some to have in the self-aid kit…)
There was an episode of 'E.R." where a night watchman got himself sprayed by hydrofluoric acid. When the physician discovered this, he stopped working and told the watchman that he was going to die and that he had better manage his affairs as best he could in the next few hours.
I once made Ammonium Chlorate accidentally. I got bored after the initial reaction, and left. But the next day the dry solid out in the yard got run over by the lawnmower. Quite a bang. Luckily only a small amount was made.
One memorable afternoon I was eating lunch by the front window of the Fatburger in Studio City, CA. A woman parked outside the joint had called AAA to jumpstart her car’s dead battery. Tow truck guy showed up and proceeded to hook up the jumper cables in exactly the way you’re not supposed to: directly to the dead battery’s terminal posts, while the donor engine is running. There was a nice spark, the hydrogen leaking from the discharged battery ignited, and the battery blew up right in his goddamned face, just outside my window vantage point. Oh, the screams…
Would calcium carbonate make sense for that task? Or would it evolve too much CO2 and heat?
Gypsum, maybe?
And, I’m happy for you that you lived through the accidental nitroglycerin. That’s a problem with nitric acid, most anything it comes in contact with turns into nitro-something and an explosive.
“… Someone should call them on this - ask for the free shipping, and if
they object, tell them Amazon offers it on this item. Serves 'em right.
Morons.”
i vaguely remember my father (a chemical engineer) talking about HF as a possible CIA assassination device. there were studies of how to add it to a cigarette, and slowly the victim would heart attack, long after the agent had left.
sadly? pop is gone, and I cannot ask him what that was all about.
