Our school, while one of the largest in the country, also had some rather antiquated equipment, materials and facilities. No fault of the school, rather a lack of funding for the relevant areas of education at the time. One of the areas where funding had obviously been short was in the provision of chemistry, biology and physics labs, all of which were housed in wooden 'chalet' type structures which didn't seem, in my own opinion, to have been designed with the idea of permanently housing those functions. By the time I was in my final year in the school those buildings bore witness to the misadventures which 12-18 year old students would get up to in the absence of eagle eyed supervision. The walls and ceilings bore splatter marks from various 'un-anticipated' results of chemical experimentation by the students and the school staff had seemed to give up trying to paint over or conceal the stains except for the annual summertime whitewash. On the particular day in question a class from the year immediately behind my own had been brought in for a chemistry class focusing on the first column elements in the periodic table. The teacher had been demonstrating the reaction of substances like lithium, potassium and sodium with water to the students and explained to them that this reaction was the reason why these elements were stored in oil - to avoid them from reacting to the humidity present in air. The reaction, for those who didn't take chemistry in school is progressively more violent the further down the column one goes. The teacher had demonstrated the variety of reactions by cutting small slivers of the relevant elements from oil covered lumps and dropping them into a glass water tank. He had just demonstrated the effect of Sodium (violent fiery reaction) when he was called away to attend to something in his second capacity in the school - that of assistant principal. One of the students in the class, a well known prankster within the school, took the opportunity to grab a lump of metal from the next jar on the demonstration desk and then shoved it, still covered in oil, into his pocket. Surprising our story does not end with the accidental 'removal' of any body parts through combustion - the oil must have been very viscous and the student was very lucky. The student awaited the return of his teacher and, once they had returned, requested permission to visit the toilet. Approval was given and the student went to the toilets located in the main building where he took out the lump of metal, threw it into a toilet bowl and ran for cover. It was subsequently discovered that the metal the student had grabbed a lump of was Cesium , which the teacher had no intention of actually experimenting with but had only taken down for illustrative purposes. Cesium should never be immersed in water or, if you're determined to do so, should be immersed in water from behind what army people describe as solid cover.

The metal entered the water of the toilet bowl, the metal reacted to the water in the toilet bowl. The ceramic toilet bowl reacted to the metals entrance into the water by shattering and, thanks to the magnitude of the reaction, the other toilets on the same level of the school experienced a sudden rush of water from the bowl outwards, apparently discomforting a number of people engaged in more legitimate toilet activities. The student was suspended for a number of weeks but earned himself the eternal nickname of 'the bomber' and a reputation for being slightly dim (taking the metal in the first place) but very lucky (that nothing untoward occurred until after he had removed the metal from his pocket).

Submitted on 03/12/2007

Submitted by: Anonymous
Reference: Personal Account

Copyright © 2007 DarwinAwards.com

Bruce said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
As I started to read this I had a pretty good idea where the story was headed and was thinking of voting this as "too common" until I got to the point where the stolen element was identified as cesium. The image of all the hapless victims made me laugh out loud, as did the bit about having to repaint the walls and ceilings every year. Thanks for the story!

Chip said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
That was a funny story! Thanks for sending it. Of course, these days this student would not have gotten off with just a suspension and a nickname. He would have a permanent police file and label. Good one!

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