Chemistry Horror Stories (1 Viewer)

yulia

i'm sorry for your face.
Joined
Dec 7, 2003
Messages
504
Location
somewhere better than you
Gender
Female
HSC
2004
My chemistry class is full of accidents due to...well...somethings are just stupid, some things are based on my school's incompetance, the death rate in my class is extremely high - so here are my chemistry experiences! But tell me yours! They're always interesting...and liven up the classroom.

My school's chemistry assistant or whatever you wanna call her, basically, if you need something for something in science like beakers etc, you have to order them from her. She and whoever is in charge of buying stuff for the school and the budget, thought they'd save the school some money by not buying pyrex/fire safe test tubes, but didn't think about what some of us would be using them for, and didn't think to warn us.
So here we are, heating up these test tubes over the bunsen burner, when I notice mine is changing shape, so I touch it of course, because I'm stupid and curious about everything, and what do you know, I get melted glass on me and the girl who is next to me heating her test tubes, well, they explode all over us.

Then we have one really dodgy bunsen burner, the flame was tremendously HUGE, and these guys were heating copper sulfate solution on a watch glass, but the flame was reaching right over on top of the watch glass, one of the guys asks the other "Is it hot yet" he looks at it and says "no", they walk away, just as they turn their backs it explodes and there's green fire everywhere...

A girl in my class was putting together a pippette. She was holding onto the CENTRE of the pippette and squashing it into the thingy...geez I cant remember what they're called, anyways it snaps, goes straight through her wrist, she freaks out pulls it out, goes into shock, slips, it slices up her thumb. Blood starts spurting EVERYWHERE (Gross, dark, black like coloured blood *pukes*) She decides she needs to lie down, so lies down on the chemistry bench, which was covered in glass from the pipette breaking. Our earth science teacher comes in to see what the comotion is about - and laughs at her.
Then we are working with organic stuff, and I end up with her as a partner, with a damaged shaky hand. She INSISTS on doing everything herself, but makes me hold the conical flask as she goes to pour in the organic stuff - i had no gloves on as my teacher decided as my hands are so small, gloves would only get in my way- so here I am trying to keep up with her violently shaking hand so she doesn't spill the stuff all over me.

Acid - strong acid - there was a bottle of it that we were all meant to get our own beaker full from - the boys, for some stupid reason, couldn't remember that, and came and took mine without telling me, they also spilled it all around my beaker and I didnt know, so I pick it up, my hands get covered in acid. But because the heaters in my school are too noisy, we werent allowed to have them on, so my hands were too numb to notice. then I put my hand on my jumper, and i notice, ooo, theres jumper stuck to my hand, then im notified that oops, they spilt acid all over my beaker - I pull off my glove that was somewhat sticking to my hand, put my hand under water, and it starts to lightly blister - im forced to wash my jumper in the chemistry sink - and end up spending the day without a jumper - on a cold rainy day.

Ok, thats about it, for now, lol.

Oh, and my jumper now has white patches where I got the acid on it.
 

And1

New Member
Joined
Apr 28, 2004
Messages
12
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
2004
Originally posted by yulia
My school's chemistry assistant or whatever you wanna call her, basically, if you need something for something in science like beakers etc, you have to order them from her. She and whoever is in charge of buying stuff for the school and the budget, thought they'd save the school some money by not buying pyrex/fire safe test tubes, but didn't think about what some of us would be using them for, and didn't think to warn us.
So here we are, heating up these test tubes over the bunsen burner, when I notice mine is changing shape, so I touch it of course, because I'm stupid and curious about everything, and what do you know, I get melted glass on me and the girl who is next to me heating her test tubes, well, they explode all over us.

Then we have one really dodgy bunsen burner, the flame was tremendously HUGE, and these guys were heating copper sulfate solution on a watch glass, but the flame was reaching right over on top of the watch glass, one of the guys asks the other "Is it hot yet" he looks at it and says "no", they walk away, just as they turn their backs it explodes and there's green fire everywhere...
Does your lab assistant still have the job? :D

A girl in my class was putting together a pippette. She was holding onto the CENTRE of the pippette and squashing it into the thingy...geez I cant remember what they're called, anyways it snaps, goes straight through her wrist, she freaks out pulls it out, goes into shock, slips, it slices up her thumb. Blood starts spurting EVERYWHERE (Gross, dark, black like coloured blood *pukes*) She decides she needs to lie down, so lies down on the chemistry bench, which was covered in glass from the pipette breaking. Our earth science teacher comes in to see what the comotion is about - and laughs at her.
Then we are working with organic stuff, and I end up with her as a partner, with a damaged shaky hand. She INSISTS on doing everything herself, but makes me hold the conical flask as she goes to pour in the organic stuff - i had no gloves on as my teacher decided as my hands are so small, gloves would only get in my way- so here I am trying to keep up with her violently shaking hand so she doesn't spill the stuff all over me.
Oh dear God...:uhoh:

Somehow I look at the text in your signature and the stories suddenly make more sense :p
 

yulia

i'm sorry for your face.
Joined
Dec 7, 2003
Messages
504
Location
somewhere better than you
Gender
Female
HSC
2004
lol yes, I'm not lying in my sig when I say my school's crap, and yep, the assistant still has her job, in fact, her daughter who attends my school wants to kill me.
 

jm1234567890

Premium Member
Joined
Aug 18, 2002
Messages
6,516
Location
Stanford, CA
Gender
Male
HSC
2003
the worst thing that happend in my school was some one spilt a bottle of BO.....

that was bad, the whole building stank (including the library, where ppl had to have classes in)

that is why they store BO in a bottle inside another bottle.
 

yulia

i'm sorry for your face.
Joined
Dec 7, 2003
Messages
504
Location
somewhere better than you
Gender
Female
HSC
2004
I think we used that stuff once, we used something that stunk real bad, I was feeling really sick that day too (ate canteen food) and the boys were like, we're not going near that stuff, Julia can do it! They opened the bag and I ran out of the room trying not to throw up. Hehehe they had to work with the stuff in the end.
 

Calculon

Mohammed was a paedophile
Joined
Feb 15, 2004
Messages
1,743
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
N/A
Originally posted by jm1234567890
the worst thing that happend in my school was some one spilt a bottle of BO.....

that was bad, the whole building stank (including the library, where ppl had to have classes in)

that is why they store BO in a bottle inside another bottle.
LOL
 

iambored

dum-di-dum
Joined
Apr 27, 2003
Messages
10,862
Location
here
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
2003
Originally posted by yulia
A girl in my class was putting together a pippette. She was holding onto the CENTRE of the pippette and squashing it into the thingy...geez I cant remember what they're called, anyways it snaps, goes straight through her wrist, she freaks out pulls it out, goes into shock, slips, it slices up her thumb. Blood starts spurting EVERYWHERE (Gross, dark, black like coloured blood *pukes*) She decides she needs to lie down, so lies down on the chemistry bench, which was covered in glass from the pipette breaking. Our earth science teacher comes in to see what the comotion is about - and laughs at her.
Then we are working with organic stuff, and I end up with her as a partner, with a damaged shaky hand. She INSISTS on doing everything herself, but makes me hold the conical flask as she goes to pour in the organic stuff - i had no gloves on as my teacher decided as my hands are so small, gloves would only get in my way- so here I am trying to keep up with her violently shaking hand so she doesn't spill the stuff all over me.
i've heard similar stories, careful kids with those pipettes
 

Calculon

Mohammed was a paedophile
Joined
Feb 15, 2004
Messages
1,743
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
N/A
Yes, pipettes going into wrists is quite a common occurance according to my chem teacher
 

yulia

i'm sorry for your face.
Joined
Dec 7, 2003
Messages
504
Location
somewhere better than you
Gender
Female
HSC
2004
It was due to her own fault - we've been showed COUNTLESS times how to put a pipette together, and yet she still grabs it at the centre and pushes and pushes...but she's kinda vague.

We were getting our reports the other day, and the principal wanted to see us each for a few minutes to talk to us about them, so we'd get called down to the office a couple of times - we were told this was going to happen at assembly, he called all year 12 to the front at the end of assembly to make sure we had heard, and the kid that had to come get us told us also where and why we were going, yet on our way down, the girl still asked me "what's this for and where are we going?"

AND she's in my roll call, and my teacher goes absolute crazy if we are not in alphabetical order, and she's meant to be 2 places to my left, but one day i got to roll call earlier than her so she stood on my right, so I moved to stand on her right with a gap between us, so she moved to stand on my right, so then I moved to be on her right, so she moved again, and in the end the girl who's spot she kept taking had to come and barge her out of the way.

Blah. She's a freaking machine tho - remembers everything else that doesn't have to do with safety and gets bloody good marks.
 
Last edited:

cko

Member
Joined
Mar 19, 2004
Messages
226
Location
sydney
Gender
Female
HSC
2004
rofl omg wot school do u go to??? its sooo funny.... my school is boring! just ur usual breaking beakers n test tubes just by dropping them
 

Xayma

Lacking creativity
Joined
Sep 6, 2003
Messages
5,955
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
N/A
Apart from burning myself twice, the worst thing that has happened is that a friend spilled some silver salt (before UV exposure) onto another friends shirt ;)
 

Calculon

Mohammed was a paedophile
Joined
Feb 15, 2004
Messages
1,743
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
N/A
I know someone who put the bunsen flame under its own hose, causing it to burn through the rubber and ignite the gas.
 

jm1234567890

Premium Member
Joined
Aug 18, 2002
Messages
6,516
Location
Stanford, CA
Gender
Male
HSC
2003
Originally posted by Xayma
Apart from burning myself twice, the worst thing that has happened is that a friend spilled some silver salt (before UV exposure) onto another friends shirt ;)
yeah, silver nitrate, I dipped my hand in silver nitrate.. didn't do anything after sun exposure
 

Calculon

Mohammed was a paedophile
Joined
Feb 15, 2004
Messages
1,743
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
N/A
Originally posted by jm1234567890
yeah, silver nitrate, I dipped my hand in silver nitrate.. didn't do anything after sun exposure
lol
 

Xayma

Lacking creativity
Joined
Sep 6, 2003
Messages
5,955
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
N/A
Originally posted by jm1234567890
yeah, silver nitrate, I dipped my hand in silver nitrate.. didn't do anything after sun exposure
Sivler Salt+Yellow shirt doesnt really work. Hmm it started out as a white salt.
 

spice girl

magic mirror
Joined
Aug 10, 2002
Messages
785
Originally posted by yulia
Acid - strong acid - there was a bottle of it that we were all meant to get our own beaker full from - the boys, for some stupid reason, couldn't remember that, and came and took mine without telling me, they also spilled it all around my beaker and I didnt know, so I pick it up, my hands get covered in acid.
next time u pick up beakers when there are beakers with strong acid around: get a paper towel and wipe it dry. a poorly-documented laboratory test for conc acid is it discolours the paper. conc sulf turns the paper black, conc nitric turns it brown.
 

xiao1985

Active Member
Joined
Jun 14, 2003
Messages
5,706
Gender
Male
HSC
N/A
Originally posted by Komaticom
This fat guy in my class, he decided it would be cool to light an Ethanol spirit burner (the cap bit was missing so the fuse just led straight down to the ethanol). Well, straight after he lit it, there was this muffled explosion and the flame must've burst a metre into the air. And our Chemistry teacher was incompetent enough to not see/hear it. Stupid Singh.
lolz... yea, ethanol burns relatively quickly... good thing you don't have much oxygen diffuse into it =p

we had a relatively safe environ i guess... the worst thing that happened i guess was when i was doin reaction of caco3 and some h2so4... we ended up puttin half a test tube of caco3 (cuz need to be equivalent in weight to the marble h2so4...

then before we could do the xpmt, our teacher stopped us.... he said we are either making a bomb or a rocket

we were like... ~~ @@
 

yulia

i'm sorry for your face.
Joined
Dec 7, 2003
Messages
504
Location
somewhere better than you
Gender
Female
HSC
2004
This one is really a Bio horror story, but it involves the girl in my chem class who broke the pipette, so I'll put it in here. We are re-enacting Pasteur's experiment, and using beef stock to do so. We were boiling it, but we boiled a bit too long so beef stock comes shooting out of the flasks, so what does she do, she walks up to them and says, "oh no!", damsel-in-distress style, and starts flapping her arms about whilst standing in the one spot. After about a minute of watching her antics, we finally went up and turned the bunsen burner off so it'd stop spurting.

We were so amazed that she didn't think, oh it's boiling too much, lets turn off the bunsen burner. *Shakes head*
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 0, Guests: 1)

Top