AIR VENTS--
When Mom Went Boom

Exhalations from our readers

compiled by Nan Swift, AIR staff

We received the following letter, which we commend to your attention:

This is in response Nelson Kallicack's letter soliciting items for his book on the history of laboratory accidents.

I have a story about an accident my mother was involved in as a co-op student in a laboratory in the 1960s. An explosion occurred while she was carrying out an experiment, and as a result her leg was badly burned. When she finally did come back to work, the safety supervisor gathered the laboratory together and proclaimed, "I'd burn an intern every day if it would teach people some goddamned safety around here."

Thomas R.M. Ulrich
Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Your Own Explosive Memories

In his original solicitation letter to us, Dr. Kallicack reported having 316 such incidents. Investigator Ulrich's mother's explosion, then, is at least the 317th in the Kallicack collection. If you have a pertinent and appropriate accident to report, please send details to Dr. Kallicack c/o the Annals of Improbable Research.

© Copyright 2002 Annals of Improbable Research (AIR)

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