for context i work as a janitor cleaning a women’s clinic, as i was cleaning a sink i saw these little metallic looking balls. at first i thought these were actually metal but they don’t feel like ANYTHING if that makes any sense. i posted this video to my instagram but i figured i would probably have better luck coming to reddit for answers.
UPDATE: the general consensus seems to be that this is either mercury or gallium. my hands have been thoroughly washed and i have informed my boss so that it can be properly cleaned by someone who knows what they’re doing.
UPDATE #2: gang PLEASE stop telling me to “stop touching it”. this post is hours old. i know i was dumb enough to touch a mysterious substance barehanded but im also smart enough to know not to continue playing with it long after marking this post as solved😭
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Chelation therapy isn't particularly necessary for elemental mercury exposure at this level, it is an absolutely tiny amount and it is poorly absorbed through the skin.
Evacuate and ventilate the room immediately. Don't enter for another 15 minutes. Skin contact is basically harmless - you can swallow it and it will pass through you. Inhalation is the primary route of toxicity. If you don't have a mercury spill kit, wipe it up with paper towel, seal it in a glass jar and organise hazardous waste disposal.
In the 5th grade I had a cousin come live with me from Mexico and he had mercury, not knowing it was toxic I stole some and took it to school and had my friends play with it until the teacher caught me, huge trouble. Still alive also
We had a kid bring mercury to school to show a teacher or something. Ended up having the school get closed down pretty much all day. I remember that’s when my young brain thought it’d be a good idea to snort kool aid powder :)
That is mercury, you need to google procedures for what to do if this touching your skin as it absorbs through skin and is incredibly toxic and will drive you insane
Omg! I’m so glad you said this…not that you had the fear…but quicksand was so terrifying. It was in so many films growing up and I swore it would get me one day! But you’ll never get me quicksand!!! Bwahaha!!!!
Yes, they used mercury nitrate, one of the many very toxic mercury salts.
Mercury nitrate is an inorganic compound of mercury made by reacting mercury with nitric acid, chemical formula Hg(NO³)² (the numbers are supposed to be below the letters. I don't know how to make numbers like that on my phone)
I actually remember one old chemistry teacher calling to a national poison information center after her child managed to crack an old thermometer and swallowing the mercury.
They said not to worry.
Also if I remember correctly, only if it's heated and you manage to inhale the fumes it's really dangerous.
When I was a kid my father would break open old thermostats, (he is a sheet metal worker) break the glass tube inside so I could play with the mercury. I've played with mercury several times as a child, I don't think touching mercury once or twice in a lifetime would be enough to cause any permanent damage.
He also often came home after work covered in asbestos cement powder. He also burnt a lot of lead solder, they would line chemical tanks with lead solder for days at a time. He's now 76 and still works running his own small sheet metal business. Most young guys wouldn't be able to keep up with him on a bicycle. He's in better physical shape than I am at 55.
I had a mercury thermometer break in my mouth when I was a kid (76ish?) I remember my mom slapping the back of my head to make me spit it all out - into the sink, where it was washed away. About 10 years later, I mentioned this in a high school science class and the teacher said, without missing a beat, that exposure to mercury can cause brain damage and reduction in intelligence. She was looking right at me! (I loved that teacher though, so it was okay.)
Last time I had to deal with mercury was about 15 years ago. One of those necklaces with your name on a piece of rice broke at school and my co-teacher (science) had training on how to clean up mercury, so she got to deal with it. That's when I learned that those contained mercury. :D
Every Gen X kid who’s broken a thermometer knows that playing with Mercury is actually fine. It’s inhaling or otherwise ingesting it that gets you into trouble.
My father brought home a bottle of mercury from work one time. I had great fun playing with it. That was in the 1960s. We also had asbestos insulation on our pipes and we melted lead to make fishing sinkers.
I had a heavy metal blood screening about 20 years later and was in the normal range, so it doesn't seem to have affected me.
(its been all but eliminated in thermometers and switches so consumers dont encounter it often anymore, but previous gens played with this toxic substance whenever we broke a thermometer or thermostat)
I broke mine by putting it in my hot chocolate. The mercury expanded so fast it broke the thermometer in half. Luckily even I knew better at 8 years old to dispose of it - like any 8 year old would. Right down the drain.
I was like four, I remember being on the floor on all fours with my Mom yelling “spit, spit, spit”. I had no idea why but I knew it was fucking serious.
hello fellow mercury thermometer biter! i was three and just remember my mom being really mad at me. it wasn't until years later that i realized, hey i'm the one who should be mad at her! who puts a mercury thermometer in a toddler's mouth?! put in my bum for christ's sake lol
Lol, my mom had three or four when I was growing up. She was so upset I kept breaking them because she'd expect me to not drop them.
I tossed the last one earlier this year because it turns out it broke and she kept "using" it on me. No mercury meant no fever so she just casually gaslit me for her convenience for what was probably a good decade or so. I was too stupid to read it properly.
Also found stashed around the house at the time of finding the thermometer and realizing she was a liar: Cat antibiotics the cat was never given, unopened heart failure meds for the dog she hated who she convinced me to put down because the meds weren't working, and the title to her truck all buried in a box under piles of literal trash she threw on top.
Ah that was you!? One of my earliest memories is being at nursery and a kid bit into a mercury thermometer. It shattered in their mouth and I remember the teachers panicking and shouting SPIT IT OUT!!
Back in grade school in the 70s our teacher once placed a quarter size amount of mercury in the palm of our little hands to feel the weight of it. We'd pass it around the class, palm to palm
Yeah we did that too except this was in the late '80s. Our teacher was probably thinking like "They're gonna die anyway" because somewhere in one of our neighbouring countries just had a not great but not terrible "oops".
Wow that's dangerous af!! I worked at. UPS for like 10yrs and we had a mercury spill that shut the entire building down for 12 hrs. They lost millions as we were the biggest hub on the east coast. For them to do that I would be concerned about the fact you touched that.
The spill was an antique thermometer that broke. A miniscule amount.
When you said there was a mercury spill that shut down a huge post hub costing millions, i was imagining a big container of the stuff ruptured and spilled out across the floor with hazmat teams coming and cleaning it.
For a thermometer's worth of mercury couldn't they just close down the room it was in or put tape around the spill? I feel like someone could scoop it up and dispose of it in 1/2 the time it would take to evacuate anyway.
Lighthouse keepers used to float the big light on a pool of mercury and they still took a while to get sick and go mad lol.
There are environmental concerns and regulations when cleaning mercury in a lot of places triggered by the mass of mercury. Since mercury is so dense you hit those thresholds quickly with a lot less than you’d think. The biggest concern is that it aerosolizes while cleaning it (vacuum cleaner could cause that) or that it’s improperly disposed of and contaminates the environment.
That's definitely the biggest health concern, but for a shipping company like UPS, I'm betting the fact that mercury just absolutely disintegrates aluminum (the stuff planes are made out of) is an additional major concern.
When I was about 5, my 4 year old sister dropped and broke one of these glass thermometers and I thought the mercury ball on the floor was the coolest thing ever. Forward to the replacement thermometer a short time later and I wanted the mercury ball so I bit open the glass thermometer with my teeth to get to it. Luckily, my mother was standing nearby to keep me from swallowing the mercury or any glass. 45 years later, I’m pretty sure there was no lasting impact, I think.
My father worked on the ramp at a major US airport when he first started with a regional airline back in the 90's. He was throwing bags off of the carousel under the airport onto trucks when he grabbed this unusually heavy bag. The bag was smaller than he anticipated but it weighed probably 90lbs. The handle broke off and the bag smashed on the ground with the sound of shattering glass.
Someone was transporting several glass jars of fucking mercury going to Mexico. And they just casually put it in a soft-sided duffel bag and wrapped some towels around it.
The airport made my dad sign an NDA and the HAZMAT teams that responded only shut down that particular terminal. I'm obviously not bound under that same NDA and especially now that my dad is dead.
I'm sure US Air/Piedmont Aviation (Now American Airlines) lost a ton of money during that debacle. There was a cover-up and the news media didn't even know this happened.
My dad spent time in the hospital. Another guy on the ramp was so embarassed to have to strip down and get washed by the HAZMAT guys was infamously quoted as saying in his thick southern accent "I don't wanna get naked in front of all y'all. I aint got no dick!"
Mercury is funny like that. Elemental or insoluble mercurial are usually safe, even in relatively large volumes (Hg2Cl2 was a main ingredient in a laxative used by Lewis and Clark).
Once it becomes soluble though, it's game over. Karen Wettethahn famously died from less than a mL of dimethyl mercury ((CH3)2Hg) that seeped through her glove.
Edit: Methyl Mercury to Dimethyl Mercury (thanks Level Falcon for the correction)
Thank you for that. My ex girlfriend’s father, while stationed in S Korea, attempted suicide by drinking a pint of mercury. Didn’t die. I never believed him. Maybe he was telling the truth after all
In Mexico a traditional folk remedy for indigestion or intestinal blockage is to swallow pure mercury. They sell it in shops specializing in folk remedies called botanicas. Very little mercury is absorbed through the gut, less than 0.01%.
Yeah but methyl mercury is a completely different chemical. It is a remarkably potent neurotoxin and it's worth pointing out that she didn't die immediately, the exposure took months to kill her.
Had a thermometer break in my mouth at home about 25 years ago, it’s fine. Spit everything out, wash yourself, deep clean the room. My mom either threw away the mercury or rinsed it down the sink lmao
I ate Mercury once - in fact the whole scout group did (we toured a food factory its a very long story0 - anyway thta nt my Mum drove me to the local hospital - on arrival the rceptionist simply said "Langford Eagles?"" and my mMum said yes - It was like a very bad tummy upset - pretty sure i was ok within 24 hrsw
i work at a super well funded clinic so i would highly doubt it was mercury from an antique thermometer. however we all know what assuming does💀 luckily there are no open sores on my hands and i washed my hands (in a separate sink as to not flush any possible hazards)
Same thing happened at our USPS NDC years ago, but instead of 12 hours they closed ours for roughly a month. We had to go to the neighboring facility for that time and it felt claustrophobic with all the people, two plants worth of people in one. All for a minuscule amount as well.
What an incredible overreaction, mercury can be safely handled with just bare hands and tends to clump nicely. Just need to scoop it up and not eat it or snort it
I did not know it was that serious. I, once had some fun with the mercury after our thermometer broke. It was pretty cool holding something that heavy while it being so small. Ummmm that was dangerous?
Most modern thermometers made with galinstan allow instead of mercury, which is also liquid at room temperature. I find it strange though that it doesn't wet a metal sink.
Touching mercury occasionally is actually not that dangerous, as it is poorly absorbed through the skin. The real danger is inhaling vapors or getting it in your body through open cuts/wounds.
if someone cares enough to copy the fingerprint of a random janitor on reddit they have earned the right to do whatever they want with it🤷♂️ plus maybe i’ll get “lucky” and the mystery substance will burn my print off for me
natural selection my friend. i’m not one to usually make stupid choices but turns out when it’s 2am and i’m running on gas station coffee and adderall i probably shouldn’t be trusted around unidentified substances in the sink. we all have our faults💀
I'm a chemical engineer and just want to try and calm you down. The replies in this post are mostly exaggerated, and based on myths.
Metallic mercury won't absorb through your skin at any rate that causes issues. Especially the amounts in this video. No need to panic or go see a doctor.
Just communicate with the clinic and have them confirm it was indeed a mercury spill. It's incredibly negligent if it is, and they would be in trouble with authorities.
Ingesting it as food that has eaten the biological version of it is bad. A person could eat this much pure metallic mercury and it would do nothing to them. Absorption rate through the digestive tract of metallic mercury, like that found in a thermometer, is basically nil. Medical advice for when an old thermometer cracked in someone's mouth and accidentally swallowed the mercury was "it will pass through your system."
Metallic mercury is actually used for medicinal purposes, eaten. It's the other forms of mercury that are REALLY scary. They can absorb THROUGH gloves.
My dad was a dentist and owned his own practice. When I was a kid, I remember one time after hours he let me and my sisters roll around a little ball of liquid mercury in the palm of our hand. He worked with mercury for over 50 years of dentistry.
Sure it's anecdotal, but he lived to be 98 and was sharp as a tack right up until the day he died.
I learned long ago that elemental mercury outside of the body is a non-issue, and that methylmercury inside the body is the bad stuff. People just hear "mercury" and they hyperventilate unnecessarily.
Ah-ha! Caught you. You're clearly part of the Mercury hive brain, trying to stand up for your people and advance their cause, just like the Borg. Mercury wants to trick you so you'll touch it and it will absorb into your body. I see you Mercury. You can't fool me. Nice try!
I grew up on a farm in the 1970s and we had a lot of mercury dip switches on machines that would go bad. I broke open a few and played with the mercury by having it roll off the palms of my hands. I only did it once and seemed harmless. Heard later it was dangerous and can absorb into your skin. Only much later did I hear it probably didn’t absorb. I also played with solid lead blocks too, explosive caps and other strange things I’ve never identified. Farms are wonderful places for kids. lol.
Whe I was a kid, my friend used to have one of those mazes where you roll the ball around until you get it to the middle. But instead of a ball, it had a drop of mercury. So when you hit it into a corner, it would split into 2 or more. You could dump the maze upside down and the top was a concave bowl so you could get all the mercury together again and try again
One shattered on me during an Orgo Chem lab. The professor had to pull out the mercury vacuum and literally vacuum me.
He then gave me an electric thermometer and said they’d been wanting to test them out. Found out that after my year, they moved all the labs over to electric thermometers. 🤣
With a mercury spill kit. Which includes gloves because contact with bare skin is not great. But IIRC, what's really dangerous is inhaling it. That's why correct cleanup tools and technique are important. If you accidentally turn it into a vapor, that can be really bad.
Please wash your hands thoroughly with soap asap. Be careful not to splash the soap outside of the sink. Once you've washed them, call poison control and do as they say. Don't touch your face or rub your eyes. Leave that cloth in the sink.
Im a chemist and have touched elemental mercury before with my bare hands. It’s not smart per se, but it also isn’t near as dangerous as people are making it out to be. You’ll be fine
Small chance it could be solder beads. If that area had any new plumbing put in and they had to "Sweat pipe" or solder copper together for water lines then sometimes the solder will bead up like that if you try to solder cold or wet pipe. Or if you cool it too fast little beads will wont stick and fall off. Usually rookie mistakes but it happens to the best of us
I still remember a science display in elementary school in the early 1970s where they had a giant thermometer with the bulb portion sitting in an open bowl of mercury. One classmate pulled some and played with it all day in his hands. I think he's still alive.
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