Tear Gassed!
Posted: Sat Feb 05, 2022 7:55 pm
My youngest son and his wife bought a house this fall and the other week the furnace went out. We are furnace guys so he just decided to rip it out and put in a new one. As he was working on it a small, old glass vial rolled off of the top of the ductwork and exploded on the floor. Right away his eyes started burning and he was having trouble breathing. He ran upstairs and grabbed a glass of water which just started him dry-heaving. He grabbed his infant daughter and got out of the house. He called me about an hour later from his in-laws. We went into his house an hour after that wearing respirators, but immediately after entering the house our eyes started burning! So, I called the fire department. They went in with scuba gear, and their meters didn't pick up on anything but they found a metal box containing 4 more vials of liquid like the one that my son knocked off of the ductwork.
Later that night we solved the mystery. In the 20's companies developed a device to protect safes. They used glass vials filled with tear gas developed during World War One and attached these vials to the inside door of a safe where a safecracker would likely drill through, breaking one or more of the vials. Then when he would open the door of the safe.... "Surprise!!!'
The previous owners of my son's house come from a family of jewelers. At one point in time years ago someone must have put these up out of the way and forgot about them, until my son knocked the one loose one off and released the 100-year-old tear gas! Everyone is fine and the next morning the house was cleared out.
But, I had better treat him good because he has four more vials!!!!
Later that night we solved the mystery. In the 20's companies developed a device to protect safes. They used glass vials filled with tear gas developed during World War One and attached these vials to the inside door of a safe where a safecracker would likely drill through, breaking one or more of the vials. Then when he would open the door of the safe.... "Surprise!!!'
The previous owners of my son's house come from a family of jewelers. At one point in time years ago someone must have put these up out of the way and forgot about them, until my son knocked the one loose one off and released the 100-year-old tear gas! Everyone is fine and the next morning the house was cleared out.
But, I had better treat him good because he has four more vials!!!!