The Wump Incident

This is not some b-grade knock-off of a Robert Ludlum novel; despite the title.

(Although that could be a good Whimsy thread by itself... Describe your day in the lab as though it was a Robert Ludlum novel. "The Surfactant Instigation" in which I begin to wash a pile of glassware.)



No. Thus is the Wump Incident -- an event that I alluded to recently in the bad days in the lab and with glassware thread. Let me cut straight to the morals of the story.

• Don't underestimate how quickly you can become complacent with the things you are handling.
  
• Even when you think you have thought things through, you might in fact be doing something really stoopid
  
• PPE and small incremental changes in scale can save your life.

Ok. Now for the story.
I recently purchased some Red P which I know will be useful for so many things -- although I don't have any immediate plans other than preparing a sample for the element collection. Because it is something that I have not really handled before, I decided to conduct a couple of small experiments to get familiar with its properties.

I figured its power as a reducer was a sensible place to start so I reached for an oxidant to compliment. The wise among you are already rolling your eyes and thinking, "You did what?" To my utter idiotic shame, yes I did. First jar in my oxidiser storage was some potassium chlorate.

I put maybe 0.1g of each on a brick outside, mixed loosely and ignited it with some tissue paper. It gave a very satisfying "wump" noise, and, being dark, a really interesting incandescence. Great! I thought. Maybe scale up a fraction. A small spoonful of each reactant on some tissue paper. Mix. Twist. Ignite the paper and stand clear. This time there was a significant percussion and a lovely fireball. I stamped out the grass fires and then chatted to my wife who happened to see it through the window. I packed everything away and called it a night.

A couple of evenings later, we had just finished dinner on the deck. The sun was about to go down and the kids were about to get ready for bed. This can be quite the process in my household so I figured some incentives were in order. I promised to demonstrate the wump after they were ready. This kind of thing is not unusual in my house. My son (7) in particular loves science. He always asks really perceptive questions. And he has a decent knowledge base. The week earlier I promised to show him a metal he had not seen before and his immediate response was, "Is it sodium?" He can probably name about half the 118 elements and could tell you either the symbols or some properties of many of them.

Anyway, back to the story. I figured I would be a good chemist this time, actually calculate some stoichiometry and weigh things and mix properly rather than randomly shove stuff together. Still working sub-gram scale, I weighed out an 0.88g charge into a tiny 10mL beaker and began to mix with a glass rod. This was a fraction larger than my previous attempt and I thought I was being sensible and cautious. For some reason I did not even consider that my mixture might be friction-sensative.

No prize for guessing what happened next. The explosion was significant. My first conscious thought was "That was stupid -- should have anticipated that one."
My second thought was that although my ears were ringing, I could still hear fine and I knew I had not blown my ear-drums. Then I saw blood on my hand where there used to be a beaker and blood splattered on the bench and floor. I immediately clenched my fist to put pressure on the bleeding, raised my arm above my head and proceeded upstairs to where my family had thought the worst. A shout-out to wearing safety glasses too.

Pain kicked in, but I was not going to open my hand to see the damage. I picked an inopportune time for my little stunt: Ambulance staff were spread thin that evening due to a number of simultaneous serious events. Nevertheless, paramedics were there within half an hour. That half hour seemed really long. I could not sit still. I was told not to take any painkillers; although I doubt they would have had much effect in that time. The pain ramped up. I thought of Yamato71. I discovered a couple of little cuts and bruises elsewhere on my body. And I breathed thankfulness that it was just my hand. My eyes, ears and face were unscathed.

I was triaged at the emergency department of the local hospital. The hardest thing was explaining over and over again what had happened and justifying being a hobby chemist with what were quite obviously dangerous chemicals (which nobody could write down correctly or had any clue what they were.) I ended up saying that they were essentially the same ingredients found in matches, which I know is streching things somewhat, but better than "potassium" and "pyrous" that was being recorded. How the hell did I not think of friction sensativity? Somehow, when people roll their eyes at you, it is a lot more difficult to take when you know you have done something doofus.

As I said, it was a busy night at A&E. The ambos had bandaged my hand well and I did get a brief glimpse of the damage. Pain was subsiding. There were 20 people already in the waiting room when I was ushered there and a whole bunch of more serious cases behind the closed doors. Waiting, waiting, waiting.

Just on midnight, five hours after the incident I was brought in to see a doctor, and to explain the story again. My hand was brown. Some was blood, but a lot of it was unreacted phosphorus. I got to thinking what things might have been like if the reaction had gone to completion. There were dozens of tiny cuts and about half a dozen bigger ones. I could see only one piece of glass. It was not very clear how many of the bigger cuts, if any, still contained glass. With all the mess, it was not even clear what was cut and what was dried blood and red phosphorus. After some discussion, the doctor agreed to let me bathe my own hand. Once again, I was thankful. Things could have gone a lot lot worse.

After some Xrays, it was clear that I would need to be admitted and that I would need surgery to properly clean the wound and remove all the glass. Not actually too many fragments present, but some were sizable and lodged quite deeply. This was not going to get done on the spot with some local anaesthetic.

It was 2:00am before I was on the orthopedic ward, in bed, with all the paperwork completed. The bed was ridiculously unconfortable. There were the usual hospital noises of machines beeping and people scurrying. Plus other noises. The guys in the beds next to me were half deaf and talked loudly and crassly at half-past three. I guess they couldn't sleep either. One mentioned, "before I got me leg cut off". I thought of Arkoma.

Dawn was a parade of nurses briefing for the shift change-over. This was followed by a parade of doctors, one of whom explained to me what I already knew. I asked about his run-sheet for the day. It had been a busy night. I would go into theatre some time after two young kids, one of whom had impaled his foot. As it turned out, I would be after a collar-bone reconstruction too.

Lots of waiting. I got to wear one of those backless surgical gowns all hungry day. They pumped fluids and prophylactic antibiotics into me. I got to drag my tubes and drips to the toilet several times. With the backless gown. Waiting. People came and left all day. Both of the night-talkers were amputees. They were also day-talkers. I had Youtube and ear plugs. With the arrival of the evening meal I was told that I had been bumped to the next day. Mr collar-bone-reconstruction arrived. He had titanium plates and screws and a lovely family and a mouth like a sewer. He had earned his hardware in a pub fight the night before. He and Amputee1 talked expletive politics loudly for four hours. Then he was discharged. His lovely wife came to pick him up.

I did get surgery the middle of the next day. All the glass is gone. There is no vascular damage. There is no nerve damage. One tendon is slightly compromised and has been stitched. It will heal fully. I have done that particular injury before. My lovely family came to pick me up. And, apart from the anaesthetic, it looks like I will get through the entire experience without needing a single painkiller. Again, I am very thankful.

So, dramatic and undoubtedly very stupid. Annoying and frustrating. But ultimately very little harm done. Potentially, it is a dangerous hobby. I have to walk away with some lessons learned.

I don't know if I can justify hobby chemistry to other people. I don't have to justify it to myself. I didn't break my bones in a drunken brawl. I did not lose my leg from overeating and obesity-induced diabetes. I am much more like the excited kid who stood on something sharp. Preventable, yes. But worthy of criticism for my hobby? Probably not.

I do need to be thankful. There is a lot that could have gone worse. And there are a lot of people who don't have it so good.

This thread definitely belongs in Beginnings. I am still learning. Long may it stay that way.



[edit, pix reordered]

[Edited on 20-2-2019 by j_sum1]

I am glad that it turned out OK.

As a consolation;
within hours of you posting the first x-ray photograph I was digging some Pt cured silicone rubber out of a 100ml beaker,
the rubber was really stubborn - but nothing can out-stubborn me, so I got more energetic,
just as I was poking and scrapin I thought of your x-ray and calmed down,
potentially saving me from a similar injury.
So, thanks for posting.

About two years ago I bought myself a cute little pestle and mortar,
when it arrived I wanted to 'test' it,
I had some fine magnesium powder and some KMnO₄ crystals so I ground the crystals to a fine powder and mixed in the magnesium powder,
I had made this type of flash powder many times as a youth so I called my family and a visitor to watch the flash,
WOW ! what a difference fine particle size and good mixing makes - BOOM !
(the powder mixture was un-confined ! )
So many ways to mess up

I'm glad you're ok.
(Great writing style by the way)

If your son decides to pick up the hobby you can probably be assured that he'll stay away from so called "death mixes"

Glad that you are ok!

J_Sum...Oef... painful to watch these glass shards...Hopefully the surgeon managed to pick all of them out, even the smallest ones remaining can cause discomfort for a long time (been there). All things considered maybe you can consider yourself lucky after all, in the worst case 1 gram of these things could have left you blind, deaf or with a couple of missing fingers. Curiosity is a strange thing...

Quote: "Even when you think you have thought things through, you might in fact be doing something really stoopid" That is a very true thing you said there, there is always that weird unexpected thing. I was quite surprised to find some needles of an insanely sensitive sodium salt of some diazoquinone when this thing was precipitated from azeotropic hydrochloric. When seeing those photo of your hand, I couldn't help thinking: "That could have been me"

Anyway, good luck with the recovery!

[Edited on 22-2-2019 by nitro-genes]

Quote: Originally posted by fusso

OMG why were you wearing shoes on a bed/ward?! Σ(ﾟДﾟ|||)

Not quite a "wump" moment

Well, this story doesn't involve a "wump" moment per se, but does contain a fuck up that landed two of us in the Emergency department (with a happy ending).

Many years ago as a geology post grad at Uni, I used to help out around the lab. We had a prof that used a fair amount of hydrofluoric acid, mainly for etching feldspar in determining their composition chemically, amongst. other things.

I was asked to have a hand in disposing around 20l of "used" HF, that was apparently heavily diluted. The prof was the kind that believed in common sense over the excessive use of PPE... and this was before the days of abundant law suites.

Anyway the prof said take the container outside and tip down the drain, which incidentally was in a semi public area.

As soon as the HF met the concrete and aluminium drain, much effervescence and steam was created along with, I believe, a strong smell. Our prof said this was the most environmentally safe way of disposing it as it would be instantly diluted in the sewer.

Curious passer-byres enquired into what we were doing, upon which we naively told them... Being discrete was not part of our briefing!!

It didn't take long for emergency services to arrive, whom quickly doused the drain with thousands of litres of water... An official asked us what we were pouring down the drain, and he must have thought we said "hydrochloric" acid and not "hydrofluoric" acid. Looking back they likely googled (probably Netscaped) what they thought I said and got "hydrochloric", which is what the reporter on the scene also wrote in the newspaper the next day.

Once the scene dissipated, he got called into the proctors office and they interviewed us. When we said HF shit hit the fan. We were dropped outside Accident and Emergency. Upon telling the nurse that we may have been exposed to HF, which I am almost certain we didn't come into contact with, she shuffled off. Meanwhile, knowing how insidious the stuff was (after some reading ourselves), we were amazed that they weren't taking it more seriously.

A good 3/4 of an hour later, and very worried doctor came out and said "did you say hydrofluoric acid?" It was after the answer to that question that things sped up a bit!!!

We were decontaminated etc, nothing else said. Next day at uni, it was like it never happened.. Ahhh the good ol days...

Time for some updates and responses to some of the comments.

The first round of X-rays did not precisely show the location of the glass. The surgeon asked the radiographer to get some pics with me making the "OK" symbol. It seemed funny at the time. The only record I could get was a hastily snapped copy of the computer screen.

It seems that they had to do quite a bit of additional cutting to extract the glass. Here is the shot just before the 23 stitches came out.



I have not really been into the lab since -- so many other things in life to catch up on. But I did survey the aftermath. Here is my lab bench with shards of glass and a fine dusting of potassium chlorate all over the bench. The furthest fragment of glass I found was more than 2 metres away from the incident.



Blood on the concrete floor. All things considered, not much blood.



Fragments of glass on the bench.



My lab stool got shredded.



Marks in the cement sheeting I have on the back wall.

Healing is going well.

A week after the stitches came out and it all looks pretty clean. Some scar tissue -- particularly internally. Still some swelling. The wound itself tingles but there is no nerve damage affecting the fingertips.



I did not get souvenirs of the glass-shards -- except for this one which I pulled out on the initial cleaning. This piece was fully submerged -- photographed beside the hole it came from. Other pieces were close to the bone.



I have a little damage to one tendon. Nothing that will compromise strength but enough to affect the way the tendon slides. I was expecting it to take months to get a full range of motion back. This fist inclines me to be more optimistic than that.

J_sum1, I just now notice this thread and I am glad to see that all goes well. That was a close call! If the glass had hit your face, things would have been much worse.

Two weeks ago, I again was shocked by the intense force of the Armstrong mix.
I made a little chemistry box for my 11 year old son. I made a nice booklet with it, with experiments and explanations of the observations. He really likes it. One of the experiments is making a TINY amount of armstrong mix. I had done each of the the experiments in the booklet myself, to be sure that they work if the instructions are followed (more or less). In the box I have some NaClO3 I made myself (in the EU you cannot buy chlorates anymore), consisting of crystals, 2 to 3 mm in size. In my own test, I took one of these crystals and crushed it with the back of a screw driver by hitting it once. To that I added a small pile of red P (appr. 3 mm high) and coarsely mixed this and then tapped with a long glass rod. In my experiments this usually gives a nice flash and a lot of smoke and a bang after two or three hits.

In the booklet I wrote that the NaClO3 has to be crunched very well and that a fine powder must be made. So my son was happily crunching, with the back of a small screwdriver with a metal end. The powder he made was really fine, like powdered sugar. He really put some effort in it.
Next, the booklet says he has to go outside and put a small amount of red phosphorus on the KClO3 on a flat glass surface (which is provided in the box as well). Not more than a 3 mm heap of loose powder. I told him not to use a stick or something for mixing. I took the amount and swirled cautiously, mixing the powder. Carefully with a piece of soft paper I moved the tiny amount into a small pile.
I told my son to take the glass rod, stand back and use a stretched arm to tap the pile. He did and there was an incredible BANG. We all had ringing ears (my daughter and her boy friend also were watching). My son was trembling after the bang and started crying.

One hour later, things were normal again. No injury, just being shocked by the insanely loud bang. I asked my son whether he wanted another experiment. He said "yes". When I asked which experiment, he said "The same experiment, but with smaller amounts"

I can't see blood, neither read stories which involve such accidents, especially were things like shards are still embedded in the skin.
I get all agitated and restless, legs moving nervously while sitting and reading this story.
This is one of the things, the main reason, why I will never do energetic chemistry
Thank you for sharing(as if I would even need more convicing that it is nothing for me).

Armstrong's Mixture

Quote: Originally posted by Bedlasky

J_sum1: Your story sounds horrible. I am glad that you are fine.

Fyndium - most of us were fascinated with pyro in our chemistry beginnings... I remember preparing "flash powder No 8" at a scale of 100 g a lot of times in the age when I did not yet have KClO4 so I substituted it with KMnO4 (thus it was not really flash powder No 8, and the number 8 is very likely used only in my country), I used electrical cafe grinder for pulverising crystals of KMnO4 (I still have the grinder and few kg of KMnO4 which is well packed and probably still good quality), then added S powder (I still have more than 15 kg of S powder in a bag which had initially 25 kg) and finally powdered Al (still approx 5 kg of it in the stock without any perspective of using it whole in the rest of my life). The weight ratio KMnO4:S:Al was 60:20:20.
Today I do not do pyro (more important things to do which have higher priority) although I have a lot of KClO4 which is much safer than KMnO4. If I do flash powder sometimes in my life it will certainly be KClO4:Al but I'm afraid I will not. I also have few kg of Sb2S3 so probably I would use something even better than only Al as a fuel