"Engine 41: Respond for a 22 year old female with an eye injury".
This call was pretty close to the station and we arrived very quickly. So quick, in fact, as to not get the update that the eye injury was caused by an egg. Yes, an egg.
Don't worry if you're feeling confused, I was too. All will be made clear.
We arrived and were greeted at the door by a young woman holding a wet cloth to her eye. I led her into the nearest room and had her take a seat. The nearest room happened to be the kitchen where she proceeded to tell us that she had been microwaving an egg and when she set it on the counter it exploded in her face. And yes, I realize there are numerous jokes and puns to be made here, like "I guess the yolk is on her", etc, but I'm not going to stoop that low. I glanced around the kitchen and saw bits of egg shrapnel everywhere. There was exploded egg all over the ceiling and the counters.
She didn't say so and I wasn't going to make her feel worse by asking if she had actually placed a raw egg in the microwave to hard-boil it, but that is obviously what had happened. The same principle behind popcorn popping and tanker truck explosions is at work here: it is called a BLEVE or Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion. Simply put, the liquid inside a closed container vaporizes and expands thereby increasing the pressure inside and causing a failure of the container and a subsequent explosion. She had somehow nuked this egg for the perfect amount of time so as to not explode harmlessly in the microwave but to delay detonation until she had crossed the kitchen with it and set it down on the counter. The flash-bang of egg grenades if you will.
I removed the cloth to see the extent of her injury and found her eye to be completely swollen shut. I could just barely get it open enough for a cursory examination. It was bloodshot and irritated but I couldn't see any actual shrapnel. We spiked an I.V. bag and tilted her head to the side and just used the tubing to run cool saline into her eye to her great relief. She had already done a pretty good job of flushing it with cool water when it first happened but she was still in pain.
By the time the ambulance arrived she could almost open her eye all the way, although only briefly. We passed off our irrigation contraption to the ambulance medics so they could keep flushing her eye en route to the hospital. I got back in my engine, shook my head, and headed back home.
Here's a link to an exploding egg video on youtube. Just imagine looking right at the egg in a bowl when it blows:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCT039Pdrag
Don't worry if you're feeling confused, I was too. All will be made clear.
We arrived and were greeted at the door by a young woman holding a wet cloth to her eye. I led her into the nearest room and had her take a seat. The nearest room happened to be the kitchen where she proceeded to tell us that she had been microwaving an egg and when she set it on the counter it exploded in her face. And yes, I realize there are numerous jokes and puns to be made here, like "I guess the yolk is on her", etc, but I'm not going to stoop that low. I glanced around the kitchen and saw bits of egg shrapnel everywhere. There was exploded egg all over the ceiling and the counters.
She didn't say so and I wasn't going to make her feel worse by asking if she had actually placed a raw egg in the microwave to hard-boil it, but that is obviously what had happened. The same principle behind popcorn popping and tanker truck explosions is at work here: it is called a BLEVE or Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion. Simply put, the liquid inside a closed container vaporizes and expands thereby increasing the pressure inside and causing a failure of the container and a subsequent explosion. She had somehow nuked this egg for the perfect amount of time so as to not explode harmlessly in the microwave but to delay detonation until she had crossed the kitchen with it and set it down on the counter. The flash-bang of egg grenades if you will.
I removed the cloth to see the extent of her injury and found her eye to be completely swollen shut. I could just barely get it open enough for a cursory examination. It was bloodshot and irritated but I couldn't see any actual shrapnel. We spiked an I.V. bag and tilted her head to the side and just used the tubing to run cool saline into her eye to her great relief. She had already done a pretty good job of flushing it with cool water when it first happened but she was still in pain.
By the time the ambulance arrived she could almost open her eye all the way, although only briefly. We passed off our irrigation contraption to the ambulance medics so they could keep flushing her eye en route to the hospital. I got back in my engine, shook my head, and headed back home.
Here's a link to an exploding egg video on youtube. Just imagine looking right at the egg in a bowl when it blows:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCT039Pdrag
Ouch.
ReplyDeleteI have to assume she was burned as well. Doh!
ReplyDelete