Apprentice tasked with collecting the dust.

Yes, still alive. I don't know if I have bad luck, a broken risk measuring system in my brain, or what. If I just listed off the substances and situations I've been in few one would believe me.

But here goes anyway:

Former certified nuclear worker. Handled the kind of sources that kill people just by being in their line of sight.

High voltage. You name it. If you are familiar with arc flash I've been around stuff, live, rate at 1600 cal/cm2. Manually operated live fully loaded multi-megawatt switches in close proximity (arms length). Regularly. Some of these being up to 40 years old in the worst cases.

UV radiation so strong it would blind you instantly and burn you from across the room. Moving sensors manually around inside quartz tubes inside high pressure chambers full of water and other quarts tubes with high voltage sources in them. Cracking the quartz, which would not be hard, would result in a sensor firing out like a rocket, into your chest, then the UV would blind you and burn you some time before you got electrocuted. I had to select the material for my face shield personally (would you trust anyone else?) and after reviewing spectrum data from 3M etc I eventually was very sure, but still tried it with one eye closed the first time.

Chlorine gas. Been exposed once to the point where I stayed up all night for fear of developing chemical pneumonia which is a risk for 24-36 hours. Personally set up, commissioned and calibrated detection and mitigation systems on tanks that if ruptured would require 25km radius evacuation.

50% strength hydrogen peroxide AKA rocket fuel. Swimming pool amounts. Spontaneous combustion on contact with organic material by the way. Also runaway exothermic reaction which produces excess oxygen.

H2S, SO2, CO and many other dangerous gasses in high concentrations. All the normal stuff, like pure caustic soda, sulfuric and nitric acid and so on. I've been in pulp and paper plants where the sawdust is so thick in the air you have to breath through your teeth and other places where the formaldehyde fumes were so strong even with your eyes closed tears would stream down your face. I've worked in rooms where the temperature was 60 C. No, I really mean 60. I've worked with bio-hazardous materials where a need stick is so bad it means you have to get chemo just to kill everything in your body that isn't human, basically. It happened to a co worker.

Certified high angle rescue. I've been in tiny cramped tubes hundreds of feet in the air at night in the winter with nobody available for rescue except the other guys who did our job. Fire department rescue impossible. Helicopter rescue impossible due to tower configuration. Also high power RF exposure risk, at the same time.

A million confined entries. Trained to don SCBA and enter areas with rupture chlorine gas tanks and patch the sides.

One time I remember being lowered into an open pit about 5m down wearing an SCBA over top of aerated liquid probably another 5m deep (aeration reduces it's density to the point you don't float, by the way) into an atmosphere that in unbreathable so I could inspect something.

I've also been exposed to asbestos, just once. And I was and continue to be very angry about that as my (major municipality in Canada) had managers yelling at me to risk my health in that way due to their own sheer incompetence/ignorance. In every other situation I could control the hazards. I did refuse but only after an expose of about 10 minutes. Stupidest thing I've ever done.

/r/funny Thread Parent Link - i.imgur.com