[M T]

BOOM!!

There was a fireball about six feet across which took out his eyebrows and a fair chunk of his hair.  He couldn't hear for a few days.  The ceiling turned black, and there was smoke everywhere.

Please don't try that at home...

We've all done stupid things and those of us writing today happened to survive them.  That isn't always the case.  I had a high-school history teacher in Houston who was missing a hand.  Of course, students are curious and have to know, so he would tell the story of how it happened.  In mid-1950s he was a TA in a high school chemistry class.  In the parking lot after school, a couple of chem students called him over to show him what they had whipped together.  It was a Mason jar full of things like sodium and phosphorus.  They had set it down on the hood of a dark Oldsmobile, in the hot Texas sun.

He started walking to it and was closest when it exploded.  He got "sucked into the explosion" (what I figure the police or doctors told him, based on physical evidence) while the other boys were killed.  He said that going for chest X-rays (this was before current airport security) was interesting because his chest was full of shrapnel, while he has a perfectly round hole in his skull (forehead).

Seriously, guys.... Anyone reading these comments and thinking about recreating such a stunt, please think again.

(If you're thinking he fabricated the story, I did find the incident mentioned in a Illinois paper (1.5yrs ago when Google newspapers had a lot more stuff.)

[M T]

BOOM!!

There was a fireball about six feet across which took out his eyebrows and a fair chunk of his hair.  He couldn't hear for a few days.  The ceiling turned black, and there was smoke everywhere.

Please don't try that at home...

We've all done stupid things and those of us writing today happened to survive them.  That isn't always the case.  I had a high-school history teacher in Houston who was missing a hand.  Of course, students are curious and have to know, so he would tell the story of how it happened.  In mid-1950s he was a TA in a high school chemistry class.  In the parking lot after school, a couple of chem students called him over to show him what they had whipped together.  It was a Mason jar full of things like sodium and phosphorus.  They had set it down on the hood of a dark Oldsmobile, in the hot Texas sun.

He started walking to it and was closest when it exploded.  He got "sucked into the explosion" (what I figure the police or doctors told him, based on physical evidence) while the other boys were killed.  He said that going for chest X-rays (this was before current airport security) was interesting because his chest was full of shrapnel, while he has a perfectly round hole in his skull (forehead).

Seriously, guys.... Anyone reading these comments and thinking about recreating such a stunt, please think again.

(If you're thinking he fabricated the story, I did find the incident mentioned in a Illinois paper (1.5yrs ago when Google newspapers had a lot more stuff.)