PSA from your neighborhood oxygen systems engineer

[boogieshoes]

People, this is my PSA for the day.  Maybe the entire year.

If you're on medical oxygen, don't smoke.  Just don't.  Chew Nicorette or go cold turkey, but fer gawdsakes', don't light up.  Because seriously, DTs are better than burning to death.

-boogieshoes, putting on her professional hat for a bit

Comments

[missingvolume.livejournal.com]

No kidding I saw someone when I was working in the ER that had burns from doing that. They didn't know that O2 could be saturated on their clothes and still go up even if they were not on the O2 at the time when they were smoking.

[boogieshoes.livejournal.com]

the professional literature states you shouldn't light up if you're *in the room* with the med-ox. it's more than just the clothes - it's the atmosphere itself that gets enriched, and in an enriched atmosphere, just about everything is flammable, and most plastic-based clothes, even that which would normally be protective (like nomex) will often burn and melt. it can't be pleasant.

what kills me is that by lighting up, these folks are literally not just endangering themselves anymore, but everyone nearby, because the flames are *so* hot and the fire is *so* intense that it will melt metals, much less burn the house down. and the firefighters may not be able to get to you, because in theory the first thing to do is turn off the source of the oxygen, which in this case will be in the heart of the hottest part of the fire.

it makes me a growly engineer just thinking about it.

-bs

[argonel.livejournal.com]

Being a metallurgical engineer I am compelled to point out hot enough to melt metals covers an incredibly broad temperature range. The range is -58C to melt mercury, but it takes +3422C to melt elemental tungsten.

For more common terminology aluminum melts at 660C and steel is approximately 1425-1500C. So yes fires in an oxygen enriched environment are hot and dangerous. Also they spread fast so don't light up around an oxygen tank or you may be lighting more than just a cigarette.

[boogieshoes.livejournal.com]

*fist-bumps in engineering solidarity*

yeah, i probably should have been more specific there.

-bs

[masgramondou.livejournal.com]

The biggest problem is that the putative Darwin Award contestant burns him/herself to death it's that he or she probably takes a bunch of others with him/her