PZ Myers. 2004 Aug 23. Aaiieee! Don't ever do this!!. <http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/aaiieee_dont_ever_do_this/>. Accessed 2008 Dec 01.

Posted on M00o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr on Monday, August 23, 2004

Aaiieee! Don't ever do this!!

This is a horrific story of an undergraduate student doing a science demonstration, which is inexplicably labeled as "humor." I didn't find it at all funny, I'm afraid. It starts reasonably enough, and then escalates slowly into something truly dreadful.

That may have been the point of no return. I, as is traditionally my role, answered that the nitrogen evaporates at the surface of the table, which provides a cushion of air for the drop to sit on, and thermally insulates the drop to minimize further evaporation. So you see a drop dance around without boiling away, and without interacting with the table and getting slowed down or smeared out. Then, I continued... I mentioned that the same principle makes it possible to dip a wet hand into molten lead, or to drink liquid nitrogen without injury.
I had done the latter several years earlier in a cryogenics lab, and remembered the physics behind how it worked. Naturally, people around me were skeptical. "You can't drink the stuff... it'll freeze your whole body... Remember 'Terminator 2?' " But I was sure of myself. I had done it before, and I believed in the physics behind it. So, naturally, I poured myself a glass and took a shot.

At this point, I could feel my entire gastro-intestinal tract going into sympathetic spasm. Ick. For a change, I will spare you the grisly details—read it yourself if you must—but basically the short story is the guy swallowed liquid nitrogen with catastrophic consequences. Here's the "happy" ending.

So... the recovery... they were impressed with my recuperative skills. I could breathe on my own completely after a few days. I could sit up in bed after a week, and was walking in two. About that time, I began to eat again as well. After four weeks, I was up and about again. Now, something like eight weeks, I'm virtually healed, with the exception of a number of unsightly scars.

I think you can surmise from the fact that the guy is relieved to be able to breathe and walk and is covered with scars that the rest of the story isn't exactly pretty.

(via Bastard Sword)

Posted by PZ Myers on 08/23 at 10:03 AM
Science • Weirdness • 0 Trackbacks • Other weblogs • Permalink
  1. Aaaaargh. Makes that Divine scene in Pink Flamingos seem pale by comparison. So, who is going to nominate this guy for a Darwin Award?
    #: Posted by Linus  on  08/23  at  11:36 AM
  2. When I was in High School, our instructor used to do the "put it in your mouth then spew out white smoke" thing with liquid nitrogen.

    We tended to do things like stick graham crackers in there, let them freeze solid, then stick them in our mouths and chew, or freeze cockroaches.

    Swallowing liquid nitrogen was insane on the face of it.
    #: Posted by Morat  on  08/23  at  12:09 PM
  3. So, who is going to nominate this guy for a Darwin Award?

    They guy is alive. I don't think we really can.
    #: Posted by mattH  on  08/23  at  12:37 PM
  4. On further investigation, this story is (a) a bit old (4 years or so), and (b) not necessarily true, though we don't find an out-and-out refutation.

    The Darwin Awards do have this on their site here, with a link to a discussion board that tends to the conclusion that it's a nice story but not much more than a nice story. I'd explore further, but they have this wacky idea here that I'm supposed to do some work; oh well.
    #: Posted by Linus  on  08/23  at  12:39 PM
  5. Agreed Linus. I read this a few years ago in the Austin Chronicle (I believe). As someone who has suffered a bizarre medical accident, I suppose I shouldn't be overly judgmental.
    Nevertheless it seem a bit of a stretch. I have to wonder how anyone with a scrap of educational background in physics would seriously even consider trying it.
    #: Posted by  on  08/23  at  12:55 PM
  6. What was he thinking? What was it he had done before? I've used dry ice cubes in drinks plenty of times... could he have confused it with something like that?

    At least he didn't try it with molten lead.
    #: Posted by  on  08/23  at  01:19 PM
  7. Oh. Now I read the story. Even the "hold it in your mouth" part sounds insane. I'm surprised he didn't dip his unit in it.
    #: Posted by  on  08/23  at  01:22 PM
  8. He could get a Darwin award only if, say, his genitals got blown off or he eliminated himself from the gene pool.
    #: Posted by Tom Morris  on  08/23  at  01:28 PM
  9. An example of what can happen when you confuse "theory" and "hypothesis"
    #: Posted by Les Lane  on  08/23  at  01:42 PM
  10. The "hold it in your mouth" part is a pretty standard "Look what fun low-temperature physics/chemistry can be!" trick. I've seen it done by grizzled old PhD's at major universities, and by grandstanding high school teachers alike.

    Swallowing it, however, I've never seen done. In fact, I remember them being pretty clear on "Swallowing this crap is a BAD IDEA."
    #: Posted by Morat  on  08/23  at  01:49 PM
  11. I don't know if this particular story is true or not, but a swift medline search turned up an article in the journal Pediatrics that described a 13 year old boy who swallowed a small amount of liquid nitrogen. The liquid nitrogen had been used to make a frozen drink in a particularly stupid school science experiment, and not all of it had evaporated.

    Koplewitz et al., (2000) Gastric perforation attributable to liquid nitrogen ingestion. Pediatrics 105:121.

    The Pediatrics paper also contains this statement:

    "The only similar case was that of a chemical engineering student who drank a beaker of liquid nitrogen and developed immediate pain and collapsed. He was found to have free air under the diaphragms and pneumomediastinum but no perforations. Full recovery followed supportive care (Cynthia Aaron, personal communication, 1998)."

    Could this be our guy?
    #: Posted by  on  08/23  at  02:15 PM
  12. I don't know...it does sound a bit urban-legendish. The article specifically states NEJM, but that could have been just to add verisimilitude. I checked Snopes, and there isn't anything about this specific story anywhere in it.
    #: Posted by PZ Myers  on  08/23  at  03:42 PM
  13. We checked Snopes as well, and I should have mentioned above that there was nothing to be found for yea or nay. This damn day job. How do they expect me to get any good blogging done??

    It's sounding like a classic legend from here. But it's still a good story.
    #: Posted by Linus  on  08/23  at  06:26 PM
  14. I've found in the Joke Index with a very urban legend like disclaimer:

    Forwarded from a guy at MIT who knows this guy at WPI. Story confirmed by a co-employee who graduated from MIT. Unfortunately we don't have an e-dress for Mikey to REALLY confirm this, but then, who would make THIS up? wink


    http://www.jokeindex.com/joke.asp?Joke=271

    The pedriatics article can be found here:
    http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0950/is_1_105/ai_59034696

    And is almost as good as the mouthfull of nitrogen story - but a bit more believable!

    /Søren
    #: Posted by  on  08/24  at  03:22 AM
  15. Aha! So according to the Joke Index, this story originates with a student at Worcester Polytechnic Institute? WPI's main campus is in Worcester, MA.

    The Pediatrics paper refers to a personal communication from "Cynthia Aaron" regarding a chemical engineering student who drank liquid nitrogen. Medline contains papers from Dr. Cynthia K. Aaron who is in the Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School,Worcester, MA.
    #: Posted by  on  08/24  at  07:24 AM
  16. Correction, C.K. Aaron was at U Mass Medical School. The School's directory does not list her, so she may have moved on. Her last paper was published in 2001
    #: Posted by  on  08/24  at  07:39 AM
  17. Incidentally, as long as we're disussing sci-fi books that were good, I'd like to vent ferociously about one that pissed me off. At the behest of my wife, and with noting to read on a rainy Saturday afternoon a few weeks ago, I picked up a Stephen King novel called From a Buick 8.

    Now this novel starts out great and was very interesting all the way through. This weird car shows up years ago and is impounded by some local police. Wierd nasty creatures, obviously alien critters, pop out of this car over a period of years in a pseudo-parallel universe sort of way.
    So I'm reading along thinking this is going o be very interesting. I'm eagerly waiting for the explanation for the car, wtf it is, what it's doing, who or what is behind it, etc...The 'aha!', the payoff.

    And the godamn book just...ends. No explanation at all.
    #: Posted by  on  08/25  at  09:36 AM
  18. I have no idea how this post ended up on this thread.
    #: Posted by  on  08/25  at  09:37 AM
  19. This is that other thread in a pseudo-parallel universe. That must be the explanation.

    I had the same feeling about From a Buick 8 -- it was a totally pointless story, just a random slice-of-weird-life bit of babble that would never have been published if anyone but King were the author.
    #: Posted by PZ Myers  on  08/25  at  10:53 AM
  20. "Forwarded from a guy at MIT who knows this guy at WPI."

    We don't do that kind of shit at Clarkson.
    #: Posted by joseph duemer  on  08/29  at  04:13 PM