From: scrigreg@chesco.com (J Scripko & N Greger)
Newsgroups: sci.chem
Subject: Re: Lab Accidents.......
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 21:36:32 GMT

wpenrose@interaccess.com (William R. Penrose) wrote:
>As W.C. Fields once said, "Ah, yesss...that reminds me of another story:"
>I was working with a carbon monoxide gas sensor which sprung a leak and 
>dribbled 4M sulfuric acid all over the knee of my jeans.  I rushed to the sink 
>and blotted the cloth extensively with water, then just to be sure, I rubbed a 
>little bicarb into it.  They dried with no apparent effect, not even 
>discoloration.

>The next day, wearing the same pair of jeans, I embarked on a 12-hour train 
>trip.  Shortly after departure, I noticed a slightly cheesy feel to the cotton 
>of my jeans.  By about the sixth hour of the trip, the cloth had turned white 
>and pulled apart, leaving the bottom half of my trouser leg hanging by a few 
>inches of cloth, and no opportunity to change.
>Bill Penrose, Sr. Scientist, Transducer Research, 

I used to only wear the same jeans to lab while in grad school,
because they got tiny little holes from acid droplets during routine
lab work. They would not appear until AFTER the next time the jeans
were washed, so you couldn't know they happened until it was too late!
As a result, I ended up with one VERY holy pair of jeans (washed
regularly, replaced as needed)

Another story comes from my undergraduate P-chem lab. At the beginning
of the year we had to calibrate all of the equipment in our drawer. On
student (a pre-med as I recall) was doing a thermometer calibration
using boiling benzene - in an open beaker, OVER A BUNSEN BURNER!! We
all got a good look at how benzene burns.

Jim Scripko