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Darwin Awards
2010 Slush Pile

This item was recently submitted by a reader.
Should I include it in the archive?
Vote to tell me what *you* think!

Mercury

2010 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance

Well, I know this is a new one, as it happened yesterday, in the course of me doing my job....

I'm an Environmental Health Officer, working in the UK, dealing with nuisance complaints. We got a complaint from a chap who was convinced that he was being poisoned in his bedroom, by his neighbour.

He'd been advised to contact us, by his doctor. It seems that since early in the summer he's been suffering increasingly severe breathing difficulties, and has been checked out by the GP for all the possibles (aspergillosis, asthma, COPD etc) and all results have come back blank.

So, head-scratching time.........

I went out and had a good look around. It seems that the problems are worse in the bedroom, much less severe when he sleeps in another room downstairs, and go away completely when he visits friends. There was nothing obvious. The windows were the original sash type, not particularly well fitting so ventilation was good, the place was dry, so mould isn't an issue. He'd replaced all of the bedding and soft furnishings etc, so nope, not dust mites. The only thing left was the carpet, could it have been cleaned with something silly? I advised using a good carpet shampoo and giving it a good clean. I was stumped. We had a bit of a general chat, about what it couldn't be and I said, very much in passing, something along the lines of "and you haven't had any chemicals in here, or anything like that?", he replied "No, nothing at all........... Well, there is that bottle of mercury on the cabinet over there"!

It was a small conical flask, about 75ml in size, and about 1/2 to 2/3 full, and bunged with cotton wool, as he had no stopper for the flask. He had "acquired it" (I didn't ask). I told him to get rid of it, and offered to find out means of disposal, and arrange to get it removed. He was keen to arrange that himself, as it is rather valuable apparently. I told him to get it into another storage vessel, one that could be sealed (like a little jam jar, or similar) and to store it somewhere other than his bedroom, ideally an external shed, and go back to his doctor to be checked out for possible (probable, almost certain!) mercury poisoning.

Okay, he doesn't actually qualify for a Darwin I(at least I hope I got there in time...), but surely an honerable mention?

Submitted on 12/17/2010

Submitted by: Steve Payne
Reference: -

Copyright © 2010 DarwinAwards.com

>> Moderator Scores <<

Bruce said:
Maybe Toss: Lacks Excellence
Thanks, Steve, for an interesting story. But I think that the vast majority of people wouldn't know that vapors from evaporating mercury could be so dangerous. Unless this guy knew of the dangers then this is just a case of ignorance and not blatant stupidity.


James said:
Definitely Toss: Lacks Excellence
In reality, few people are truly knowledgeable about the toxicity of mercury, especially the vapors. I too will write this one off as ignorance rather than premeditated, egregious stupidity. Thanks just the same, Steve!


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