Not quite KFC...

[fayyaad]

My father used to work at a chemical processing plant, and this particular plant had two really tall stacks for the emission of unwanted gasses. I recall back then that, at night, you could see the gas emissions burning blue out one stack, and yellow/green out the other. Anyhow, asked my father about those stacks recently, and he related a kind of UL that was rampant around the plant back in his day.
Supposedly, when the methane stack (I think it was the blue one, but I'm rubbish at science, so I can't rightly recall myself!) was burning pure, the gas would burn colorless. The UL went that there was an occasional pigeon who didn't see the gas emissions, flew straight through it (burning at several thousand degrees celsius), and land as roast on the ground, or worse, crash through someone's office window as "lunch that were never ordered".

What thinks you?

 

[James_H]

doesn't seem impossible

 

[drjbrennan]

Hydrogen will do this quite nicely and I remember seeing a "999" type programme about a hydrogen tanker, on fire and venting burning hydrogen, but as the flame is invisible they had to enlist the police helicopter with its Infra red camera to tell them where the flames were to avoid the 'toasted pigeon' scenario.

 

[marion]

That reminds me of a story related by a teacher when I was a kid. He said an acid tanker crashed and was pierced with a fine hole, a man running to see if the driver was OK ran through the fine mist of acid spraying from the puncture and was a skeleton before he hit the ground.

 

[drjbrennan]

That reminds me of a story related by a teacher when I was a kid. He said an acid tanker crashed and was pierced with a fine hole, a man running to see if the driver was OK ran through the fine mist of acid spraying from the puncture and was a skeleton before he hit the ground.

These stories are beloved of health and safety officers the world over because they underline the first rule of first aid which is "Don't become a casualty yourself" so we have stories of people going to aid others and injuring themselves.

I have been told lots of these tales over the years.

My favourite is of an old style freighter carrying scrap metal from west Africa to a re-cycling plant in Liverpool.

The ship docks in port and the crew open one of the hatches to check the cargo is ok. The hatches are sealed tight during a voyage to prevent water getting into the holds in bad weather.
They lower a ladder and one of them climbs down and as he gets to the bottom of the ladder he collapses, so one of his crewmates goes in to rescue him, and he collapses. It is not until there are half a dozen of them lying at the bottom of the ladder that the crewman who is left thinks about calling for help.

The iron in the cargo had reacted with the oxygen in the hold and the oxygen had been removed from the air in the hold. As the crewmen went in they passed out from anoxia.

I don't know if this story is true but the chemistry is real.

 

[Anonymous]

Slightly off thread i know but there is a pigeon involved.
Went to see Pink Floyd at Maine Road in Manchester in the late 80's. While Dave Gilmour was sawing away i just happened to look up above the massive speaker stands at the side of the stage. A poor unsuspecting pigeon which had flown over the tops of the cabs got caught in some kind of down or up draft and went tumbling and summersaulting for a few seconds before getting out of the draft and carrying on its way.
Must have thought