As some of you know I used to be a cop. Well I'll tell you a story about the rocket experiment that went very sadly awry.
There are many chemical combinations that can cause this type of reaction. A WONDERFUL reason to not be a do it yourself carpet cleaner chemist and leave the mixing to a true professional (FREE plug their Rick G.).
Well anyway one of those combinations is automotive brake fluid and pool chlorine. You can make a hand grenade equivalent with a pint of brake fluid and powdered pool chlorine.
Well on high school graduation night in 1986 some graduates decided to celebrate by making these small bombs in a wash. They all had fun a decided to make a bigger version.
They took the gauges off of an oxy-acetylene tank. Then they poured a few pounds of powdered chlorine in there. Followed by about 2 gallons of brake fluid. Screwed the gauges back on. Carry the tank out in the middle of the wash….....BAAAM- Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge explosion while the young man was still carrying the tank into the wash.
When we arrived the fire fighters had just gotten there and had the young man lying on his back. The explosion had blown the skin completely off of his chest. His ribs, lungs, stomach and other internal organs were completely exposed.
The ambulance whisked him away to the hospital. I was a police cadet and only 17 years old at the time, so I was tasked with the responsibility of "guarding" the evidence that was being collected- itty bitty parts of the exploded tank, brake fluid can, chlorine container, etc. A man walks up to me and says- "Where do I put this?” I turn around and say- "What is it?" He replies: "His thumb."
Guess which freaked out 17 year gets to hold the thumb and an ice pack on the ride to the hospital so that it can be attempted to be reattached.
Unfortunately he went 10-7 (died) at the hospital while we were doing "thumb delivery" (great now I have an extra thumb). Surprisingly it was not from the physical damage caused from the explosion and it ripping his skin off his chest. The chemical mixture apparently also creates a lethal gas in that large of a quantity and with no skin his organs were directly exposed.
To make matters worse his older brother was there and told us that their father had died in a construction site accident in Texas about 10 years before that, and his youngest brother had gone missing when motorcycle riding in a wash after some heavy rains, and was presumed sunken into a sink hole when the motorcycle was found and no body three years previously.
That left the one brother and mother out of a family of five- three bizarre deaths.
This is 100% a true story- Stephen King can't make them up that good.
Now you all know one of the many reasons I clean carpets (and have a morbid sense of humor).
Now where did my Mentos and Diet Coke go.....?
Del Scrivner
Owner/Operator
Cowboy's Carpet Care
