Have you ever started a fire?I went to sleep with candles burning - woke up to a circle of flame on the rug. Thought, "Tits. Better put the rug in the bath and turn the taps on." TIP: Don't put a burning rug into a fibre glass bath. I caused about £5000 of damage to the house and was coughing up smoky black phlegm for a few weeks. Can you beat that?
(
rob, Tue 2 Mar 2004, 17:48)
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notstrictly a fire..
but it does have an explosion. and acid.
my story starts at uni, where I studied chemistry. we were conducting some experiment in the lab involving a reaction with chlorosulphonic acid, quite strong stuff that reacts violently with water to form gaseous hydrochloric acid (HCl) and sulphuric acid (H2SO4). thereaction was a bit slow though, so on the advice of the lab assistant the whole setup was put in the cooling chamber, and closed of with a waterlock. this turned out to be a fatal error.. that night, water was sucked in from the waterlock to the reservoir holding the acid. when I entered the cooling chamber to pick up my experiment the next day, I noticed 3 things:
1. my setup had exploded. total yield of the reaction would be 0.
2. sulphuric acid everywhere! over the expensive equipment, measuring gear, and a few other experiments.
3. the best cure for the common cold is 20 secs in a highly acidic athmosphere.
anything alive up my nostrils was now dead. unfortunately, so was the inside of my nose... which started bleeding sponaneously, and continued to do so regularly for 2 weeks.
(, Tue 2 Mar 2004, 19:03, Reply)
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