Opps! Sorry, Did I Do That!?

Think about what you do for work and then make a mental list of all the dangers and possible ways you could die doing your job. Is it a long list or fairly short? A bunch of jobs I have worked in my career have come with JHSAs (Job Hazard Safety Analysis) sheets which I was required to read and sign before the first day of work. Regardless of how great you are at predicting the worst case scenario there are those things you never see coming or can predict would happen in a million years. The summer of 2003 I took a job working as a laboratory/field technician for the Center for Biodiversity Research. I would be working as part of a larger team doing a biological inventory of the Fort Indian Town Gap National Guard Training Base and I would be specifically focusing on bugs.  Now for those of you who do not know anything about the training base the biggest thing that you need to know is THEY USE LIVE BOMBS and AMMUNITION! It is one of only three places in the United States where you can fire/drop/launch live ordinances (bombs). Before starting our research we were required to attend a range safety lecture where they would go through all the hazards we could potentially face such as: getting run over by a tank (the range officer kept telling us not to take naps on the tank roads), stepping on a UXO (unexploded ordinance) causing it to explode, getting shot, having something heavy dropped on you as they trained on how to use a helicopters to move a tank, picking up a magnesium flare that had not fully exploded, the list goes on but I will not bore you with the whole list. Thankfully, we made it through the research season with no injuries except for my boss developing a minor case of heat stroke.

Things were going well with the research we were finding interesting insects in our collected specimens.

Family: Enicocephalidae

Things were going great until one day I walked into the lab and turned off the fume hood. The rule of thumb in the lab is if you put something into the fume hood you are supposed to tape a note to the door with with your name and why it is on and if/when it can be turned off. After listening to its jet engine like noise for five hours straight I got up and turned it off not seeing any reason that it needed to be left on after all there were only four mason jars in it. Fast forward two hours later my coworker walks into the lab and starts talking to me and in just a few minutes realized we (mainly me) need to go outside QUICKLY.  We sat outside talking for a while, I really have no idea how long, and then at some point I looked at him and said "why are we sitting outside?" "Welcome back" was his first response followed by a looooong silent pause. He sifted nervously on the grass trying not to make eye contact. I stood and brushed the grass off my pants and started to head back into the lab before he stopped me and said it would probably be a good idea to wait a little longer.  By this time I was beginning to get annoyed because it was clear something was going on and my coworker was not going to talk easily.  Over dinner, he insisted on paying, he spilled the beans by first asking me if I noticed a funny smell in the lab which I had not noticed anything different. "I made killing jars and put them in the hood to dry and forgot about them." he explained.  "I'm gonna, need more information here." I replied staring at him. So, long awkward story short killing jars are made with a killing agent, layer of sawdust over that, and then a cap of plaster of paris. In the case of the jars my coworker made cyanide crystals are the killing agent.   

Now there are two types of people in this world; those who posses the gene which allows you to smell cyanide (my coworker) and those of us who lack this particular gene (me).  If I had possessed said gene I would have noticed shortly after turning off the fume hood the somewhat odd smell of either bitter almonds or industrial bleach depending on your perspective. According to my coworker when he arrived in the lab I was having some difficulty stringing words together, admitted to having a headache, and being slightly dizzy. Those are just some of the signs of cyanide poisoning. Good news in this story is because it was not a small confined space and there was a cross draft through the lab there was not going to be any permanent damage to me. Large dose of fresh air and I was my normal self again. I am fairly confident that to this day my coworker clearly labels fume hoods from now on.   



 More Info. 

 https://emergency.cdc.gov/agent/cyanide/basics/facts.asp