Hey All:
Back, quite some time ago(about a year or more), I was washing the dilluted, post-reaction fluid from an HI/RP cook with Xylene. There was about 400mls of fluid plus, 400mls of Xylene, in a 1000ml RB flask. I, at the time, was into the habbit of using boiling hot solvents to wash with. I usually heated them up in a seperate container, then added them to the post reaction fluid. This time I had the great idea of making it easier by doing it all in the same flask. I added the Xylene and, being impatient, turned the heat up to max, and waited. For about 5-10 minutes there was no bubbling, no nothing. Now, I had a friend over to keep me company and we where smoking weed(I know, this whole situation is just destined for something teribble hapening). My friend walks over to me to pass the joint, I looked over at him to take it, as I look back to the flask it suddenly erupts. Almost all of the Xylene and about half of the reaction fluid shoots straight out of the flask, six feet to the giant light on the ceilling, hitting the round/domed shaped diffuser its atached to. The susequent result was an all encompassing dome shaped shower being rained down on us.
Aside from being covered in crap, I was all right, my friend however was not, he was not wearing any eye protection(except for just having walked over, he was on the other side of the room all night, so he figured they where not necesary, I agreed, since he wasnt near anything). He had been hit dead on, in both eyes with Xylene and post reaction fluid, not good to say the least. Now I keep a kit of emergency stuff for these kinds of occasions(baking soda,respirator,eyewash,etc), so I scrambled over to get it, only to find that the eye wash(for some reason?) was empty. I ended up having to lead him, quickly as possible up stairs to the shower, and stick his wyes into the stream for about 4-5 minutes. The burning finally stopped but, it took us about a full minute or more to get him upstairs and into the shower. Now is where the story gets kinda interesting, a few minutes after he stopped washing his eyes, they covered over with a sort of skinlike plate(like the stuff you get on contacts if you fall asleep with them in, is the best description I can give), he just reached into his eyeball and peeled it off like a sticker and every hour or so for the rest of the day it would keep re-forming. He was not blinded, or anything like that, in fact he had no vision problems at all(lucky fucker). What did happen though was(well at least he claims it did), he was spun out of his mind for about two days. I figure it could be possible from the HI eating through the outer layer of his eye, and getting absorbed through the cappilaries, Ive heard of peole dosing LSD the same way, and the HI/Xylene was in his eyes for a minute or more, maybe it was long enough to eat its way in, even in its dilluted state. Needless to say my lesson was learned, I looked up bumping and boiling stones the next day and, eyewear is mandatory for all from now on.