On Wednesday, February 04, 2004 2:39 PM, Mike Wallace wrote:

> http://www.sundaytimes.co.za/2004/02/01/news/gauteng/njhb01.asp

> Homemade pressure chamber blows two men to bits

I'm still catching up on posts, so only looked at this today.

It never ceases to surpise me about how blase people become with regard to
oxygen.  As the article said, hyperbaric O2 therapy has been around for a
long while.  The dangers, however, are enormous when people fail to take the
proper safeguards.  Particularly with regard to the type of materials that
they take into the chamber.  This extends to clothing.  Jeans, for example,
with metal studs on the pockets can initiate a spark.  Similarly with belt
buckles, coins, rings, watches, etc.  Even body oils and other 'dirt' based
contaminants pose a threat in a pure O2 environment.

When I left  the Navy, I did a commercial diving course at the old
Siebe-Gorman works, in the UK.  Still considered, at that time, to be one of
the world's leading diving organisations.  (FWIW, I learned 'hard-hat'
diving that had no practical application to the new world of super light
helmets.  But that's by-the-by!) :-)

I did extreme exposures in both their wet and dry pots.  And while there,
learned about the WWII O2 experiments that had taken place in those same
hallowed halls!  :-)

Including Haldane's experiments with goats, that resulted in one hungry
goat - obviously feeling a little peckish and hungry - who nibbled on the
exposed but insulated lighting wire inside the chamber and who managed to
blow itself to bits.  I always think of that every time I eat shish-kebab!
:-)))

Strike