The Day Started Right
My right hand smells like baking soda. And for a good reason at that.Let me narrate what happened today.
Analytical chem lecture was a toss between boring and exciting. I got a perfect score in a short quiz, but a flat zero on the next to balance it. What followed after was another boring lecture of complex equilibria.
Today was the day to return glasswares for organic chem lab. OLES (Office of Laboratory Equipment and Supplies) would not accept any glassware with stains or any dirt. I noticed one big nasty stain on the bottom of a test tube. I went to the reagent table to get some acid to rinse it off. I took the pipet in the bottle containing the concentrated sulfuric acid, dropped a few drops to the stained tube, and shook it. I threw the acid contents down the sink together with running water when I noted a long brown line in my hand.
As I stared at it, it started to fizzle and burn.
Somebody dropped some drops of CONCENTRATED sulfuric acid on my hand!!! Jumping from the pain, I rushed to the sink and irrigated it with running water. When I placed my hand on the running water, it fizzed as some fumes were seen evolving. That's what you call a concentrated acid burn. As I washed it with water, the line became white and looked embossed; that's when I knew it: this is serious. It hurt like hell.
I approached the instructor's table. Sir B was there.
"Sir, natapunan po ng sulfuric acid." I showed him the wound and he got this worried look in his face as he told me, "Maghugas ka ng kamay."
I washed my hand again but it still hurt, so I asked for a neutralizer.
Sir B told me to wash my hands with soap as he went to the mixing room. When he got back, he was holding a beaker of white colloidal substance suspended in water. Sodium bicarbonate. We approached the sink and he carefully poured the neutralizer in my hand. It was still hurting.
"Mahapdi?"
Sure it was.
Then he told me to come with him to the mixing room, this time irrigated it full time with sodium bicarbonate thrice. Sir B told me to hit the health center immediately.
It took almost hours before the pain subsided. Now, there's a long line in my hand that indicates that nasty second-degree burn.
What was more funny was when I went to the health center and told the nurses that I got sulfuric acid in my hand, they gasped and immediately sent me in the center's ER. Hydrochloric acid won't do a thing to you, nitric acid would stain your hands yellow and the skin would peel off in a few days, but sulfuric acid would burn your hand. Trust me.
posted by steph @ 6:34 PM
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