Compressed Gas

As a lifeguard, I am trained to administer oxygen if someone needs it. We keep a tank of oxygen on the beach at all times. Whenever I recertify in my oxygen certification (which is each year), the instructor always talks about how careful we must be with the tank. The tank isn't that big, it's about half the size of a fire extinguisher. However, if the tank is dropped and becomes punctured, the force of the compressed gas coming out a hole in the tank would blow a the tank through a wall or two and it could hurt you very badly. Therefore, we aren't supposed to even put an oxygen tank on a table, in case it falls. Now in reality, the tanks are very sturdy and I've dropped one once or twice and nothing happened. This is background information for a particular moment of uneasiness that I experienced yesterday.

I was walking through the tunnel through the Chemistry building in the LSC yesterday. I turned a corner and I saw it. A huge tank of nitrogen. Just sitting in the hallway. It was taller than me and you could have fit several people inside it. All I could think of was what would happen if this tank ever got a hole in it. It should be a registered weapon or something. Tanks of compressed air should never be this big. I didn't want to go near it. This brought me to the conclusion that I shouldn't devote my life to working in a chemistry lab because the chemicals frighten me.

Scientists really walk on the wild side.