Author Topic: I got exposed to toxic material of a thermometer...  (Read 6606 times)

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Offline GlennSprigg

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Re: I got exposed to toxic material of a thermometer...
« Reply #25 on: September 15, 2019, 01:07:58 pm »
When my 1st child was about 2 or 3, (30 years ago), he bit and broke a glass thermometer that
a doctor had given him. The doctor said... "Don't worry, it's a safe type of Mercury!!".
I know now that is CRAP!!  We don't know how much he ingested, but I would hope that most
of it would pass through, unlike deadly heated vapours !!!
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Offline Zero999

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Re: I got exposed to toxic material of a thermometer...
« Reply #26 on: September 15, 2019, 03:47:47 pm »
When my 1st child was about 2 or 3, (30 years ago), he bit and broke a glass thermometer that
a doctor had given him. The doctor said... "Don't worry, it's a safe type of Mercury!!".
I know now that is CRAP!!  We don't know how much he ingested, but I would hope that most
of it would pass through, unlike deadly heated vapours !!!
What the fuck was the doctor thinking, putting a glass thermometer in a small child's mouth? They should have put it up his arse: much safer!

My concern would be him breathing in the mercury vapour released from his stomach, when he burped.
 
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Offline babysitter

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Re: I got exposed to toxic material of a thermometer...
« Reply #27 on: September 15, 2019, 05:42:48 pm »
During my check-up I asked my doctor, "Do you think I'll live a long and healthy live?"
He replied, "I doubt it. Mercury is in Uranus right now"

I said, "I don't believe in any of that astrology bullshit doc"

"Neither do I. My thermometer just broke"
I'm not a feature, I'm a bug! ARC DG3HDA
 
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Online coppercone2

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Re: I got exposed to toxic material of a thermometer...
« Reply #28 on: August 22, 2023, 04:53:43 am »
first thing you need to do is panic so you rake up useless medical bills.

because I am like gonna guarantee you, the guys assembling it are not as careful as you think. But it is wise to do proper disposal and shit if you are at work because its some crazy lawyer shit that can get activated.

Consider old time miners. It took a while of really really unsafe and crazy procedures before they started getting ill. Like burning rocks for days.
« Last Edit: August 22, 2023, 04:56:12 am by coppercone2 »
 

Online Smokey

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Re: I got exposed to toxic material of a thermometer...
« Reply #29 on: August 22, 2023, 05:08:32 am »
....Most of the people on this list have probably played with metallic mercury. ....

yup.
 

Online Smokey

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Re: I got exposed to toxic material of a thermometer...
« Reply #30 on: August 22, 2023, 05:12:21 am »
It has been demonstrated that Silver-Mercury amalgam tooth fillings give off Mercury vapour every time you rub them, even many years after they were inserted.

Not another thing I'm not allowed to rub!  Will this one make me blind too?
 

Offline Brumby

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Re: I got exposed to toxic material of a thermometer...
« Reply #31 on: August 22, 2023, 05:22:29 am »
Well, it's nearly 4 years on ... and the Op hasn't posted since.  Do we assume the worst?

I'd say not.
 
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Offline EPAIII

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Re: I got exposed to toxic material of a thermometer...
« Reply #32 on: August 22, 2023, 08:48:43 am »
In my childhood and teenage years I played with mercury. I do not recall ever swallowing any. I am now 79 years old and still kicking. I am not a medical expert, but that should tell you something.

And not just about mercury.

I wonder whatever became of that bottle of mercury that I had collected. I think I may have donated it to a lab somewhere.
Paul A.  -   SE Texas
And if you look REAL close at an analog signal,
You will find that it has discrete steps.
 

Offline hans

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Re: I got exposed to toxic material of a thermometer...
« Reply #33 on: August 22, 2023, 09:47:54 am »
Any accident is anecdotal. I wouldn't count on it.

I will just leave this one here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Wetterhahn
 

Offline Calambres

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Re: I got exposed to toxic material of a thermometer...
« Reply #34 on: August 22, 2023, 11:53:31 am »
As a kid, long before I knew about its dangerous properties, I played with liquid mercury for days and weeks and tried to suck it as high as possible in a straw and sometimes ended up having it in my mouth.
No worries!

Ditto! no problems so far in my nearly 64 years of life in this planet.

now... wait!... this may be the reason why I'm so...

Whatever!  :D

Now seriously, mercury ended up in my mouth several times in my childhood. Not something I'm particularly proud of but also not something I worry about much!

Offline gnif

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Re: I got exposed to toxic material of a thermometer...
« Reply #35 on: August 22, 2023, 09:36:14 pm »
When I was about 6 I found in my dad's electronics junk a mercury switch that had an extra "terminal", it was actually a metal stem used to fill the vile which was crushed after filling. Being the curious type of child decided to bend this till it tore open to see why it had this curious extra stem, and on doing so the mercury in the switch spayed into my eyes. My parents took me to the hospital and they couldn't remove the tiny beads of mercury floating around and basically sent me home saying there was nothing they could do.

30+ years later, I am still here, no known ill effects, it's still a concern in the back of my mind but as it was the metal form of mercury and based on what I understand of it today, I am quite doubtful I was poisoned by it in any significant way.
 

Offline HighVoltage

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Re: I got exposed to toxic material of a thermometer...
« Reply #36 on: August 22, 2023, 09:38:32 pm »
In my childhood I had access to lots of old mercury switches, that is how I got a hold of this amazing liquid metal.

These switches were made of glass, and some really good switches were under vacuum. I know this, because these were not easy to break and with enough mechanical force, some of them imploded, like a TV tube. Over the years I must have collected about 1 liter bottle full of mercury and it was so much fun to play with. Sometimes it ran down the kitchen table and splashed all over the floor in tiny pieces.

These days its probably not so easy to get a hold of mercury.
Who knows, maybe special permits are needed to buy it. :-DD

Dimethylmercury ((CH3)2Hg) is a different story, this is pure poison and you want to keep your hands away.

I am still flabbergasted, that some dentists are still using mercury fillings for teeth.

There are 3 kinds of people in this world, those who can count and those who can not.
 

Online Smokey

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Re: I got exposed to toxic material of a thermometer...
« Reply #37 on: August 22, 2023, 11:48:53 pm »
...
These days its probably not so easy to get a hold of mercury.
Who knows, maybe special permits are needed to buy it.
...

https://www.newark.com/durakool/4539/tilt-switch/dp/82H9622
 

Offline Stray Electron

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Re: I got exposed to toxic material of a thermometer...
« Reply #38 on: August 23, 2023, 01:10:28 am »
   There was an old neon sign shop in the town that I lived in as a kid.  We used to go in there and they would let us collect mercury that had spilled on the floor.  We would take bits of papers and push the drops around to form bigger drops and then carefully scoop them them up.  The floors and all of the work benches in the place we all covered in tiny drops of mercury.  The same shop had a big pile of old used Neon sign transformers outside that they had taken out of service and they told us to take any of them that we wanted. I still have a couple of the bigger transformers (27mA @15,000 V IIRC) and some of the mercury that I collected there.
 

Offline HighVoltage

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Re: I got exposed to toxic material of a thermometer...
« Reply #39 on: August 23, 2023, 09:28:33 am »
When I was about 6 I found in my dad's electronics junk a mercury switch that had an extra "terminal", it was actually a metal stem used to fill the vile which was crushed after filling. Being the curious type of child decided to bend this till it tore open to see why it had this curious extra stem, and on doing so the mercury in the switch spayed into my eyes. My parents took me to the hospital and they couldn't remove the tiny beads of mercury floating around and basically sent me home saying there was nothing they could do.

30+ years later, I am still here, no known ill effects, it's still a concern in the back of my mind but as it was the metal form of mercury and based on what I understand of it today, I am quite doubtful I was poisoned by it in any significant way.

What a cool story!
Your parents really must have been scared.
Would be interesting, if you ever need an MRI and the tiny beads would still show up.

There are 3 kinds of people in this world, those who can count and those who can not.
 

Offline Veteran68

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Re: I got exposed to toxic material of a thermometer...
« Reply #40 on: August 23, 2023, 03:22:14 pm »
Would be interesting, if you ever need an MRI and the tiny beads would still show up.

I just cringed when I thought about how magnetic mercury might be (fortunately, not very, at room temp).
 

Offline TimFox

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Re: I got exposed to toxic material of a thermometer...
« Reply #41 on: August 23, 2023, 03:56:25 pm »
Like most normal metals, mercury is slightly diamagnetic (negative permeability) at room temperature.
However, non-magnetic conductors do show up on MRI scans since they "mess up" the local RF field, along with the small diamagnetic effect on the magnetic field.
Many metal surgical implants are now made from titanium to avoid injury from the strong magnetic field in MRI, and because titanium works well with bones in situ.
 

Offline Veteran68

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Re: I got exposed to toxic material of a thermometer...
« Reply #42 on: August 23, 2023, 05:39:58 pm »
Many metal surgical implants are now made from titanium to avoid injury from the strong magnetic field in MRI, and because titanium works well with bones in situ.

I'm crossing my fingers that holds true in case I ever need an MRI, considering I have three titanium plates and 36 titanium screws holding my sternum together. :)
 

Offline TimFox

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Re: I got exposed to toxic material of a thermometer...
« Reply #43 on: August 23, 2023, 07:06:06 pm »
I worked for a while in MRI when the procedure was quite new.
We heard horror stories about older surgical implants made from ferromagnetic material, done before MRI was available.
The worst one I remember was an "aneurysm clip", a kind of spring clip to clamp a failed blood vessel to keep it from bleeding.
The torque applied to the long clip in the static field pulled it away from the blood vessel, killing the patient.
Another contraindication for MRI is an implanted cardiac pacemaker:  some new ones can work (be very careful), but at that earlier time they contained a magnetic switch so that the physician could switch from synchronized to clock timing with a reasonable external permanent magnet for diagnostic purposes.
Also, the pulsed gradient and RF fields really screwed up the pulsing, leading to far too high pulse frequency.
One simple experiment put a normal pacemaker in a beaker of saline solution, inserted it into the scanner on the patient couch, and saw it run away at very high pulse rate.
"Nonmagnetic" stainless steels are not quite:  titanium is very nonmagnetic (slightly diamagnetic).
 

Offline Veteran68

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Re: I got exposed to toxic material of a thermometer...
« Reply #44 on: August 23, 2023, 07:55:13 pm »
I still set off metal detectors! LOL
 

Offline KaneTW

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Re: I got exposed to toxic material of a thermometer...
« Reply #45 on: August 23, 2023, 07:56:39 pm »
1. Was it a workplace accident? If yes, go see a doctor regardless of anything if you believe you have been exposed.

2. Thallium is quite toxic, and absorbs via any route (skin, ingestion, inhalation). But unless you were touching a spill directly it's unlikely that a significant exposure occurred. For reference, airborne concentrations of 15mg/m3 are acutely dangerous.

3. If you're worried, see a doctor and don't ask on a forum.
 

Offline TimFox

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Re: I got exposed to toxic material of a thermometer...
« Reply #46 on: August 23, 2023, 08:14:08 pm »
I still set off metal detectors! LOL

The threshold level for detecting non-magnetic metal is less than the hardware you contain:  consider the weapons you could fabricate from less material.
This is a frequent problem at TSA airport security gates with orthopedic implants, but not the much lighter dental implants, and they have procedures for that.
An analogous problem is the (short-lived) radiation from certain medical procedures that follow radioactive tracers through the body.
While it lasts, the radiation level just outside the body is above the threshold for radiation portal detectors.
 

Offline Zero999

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Re: I got exposed to toxic material of a thermometer...
« Reply #47 on: August 23, 2023, 08:49:53 pm »
It's not just magnetism which is the hazard of MRI. The RF can induce currents which result in heating. It depends on the impedance of the metal. If it's very low, it'll just reflect, whist if it's a bit higher, it'll heat up.
 

Offline Gyro

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Re: I got exposed to toxic material of a thermometer...
« Reply #48 on: August 23, 2023, 09:02:12 pm »
Many metal surgical implants are now made from titanium to avoid injury from the strong magnetic field in MRI, and because titanium works well with bones in situ.

I'm crossing my fingers that holds true in case I ever need an MRI, considering I have three titanium plates and 36 titanium screws holding my sternum together. :)

Yep, the ones in my skull are fine in the MRI scanner.
Best Regards, Chris
 

Offline TimFox

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Re: I got exposed to toxic material of a thermometer...
« Reply #49 on: August 23, 2023, 09:32:39 pm »
It's not just magnetism which is the hazard of MRI. The RF can induce currents which result in heating. It depends on the impedance of the metal. If it's very low, it'll just reflect, whist if it's a bit higher, it'll heat up.

Yes, induced RF currents are hazardous.
It depends strongly on the geometry of the implanted metal.
 


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