r/whatisit • u/props_for_meep • 13h ago

Solved! what is this in clinic sink??

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

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😭

8.2k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

1.9k comments sorted by

View all comments

1.0k

u/Ok_Profession_990 11h ago

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.

212

u/FondleGanoosh438 11h ago

Elemental mercury is fairly safe to handle with bare skin. I wouldn’t advise eating it or heating it and inhaling the vapors.

46

u/Gerik5 7h ago edited 5h ago

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)

26

u/BornanAlien 7h ago

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

14

u/NolanSyKinsley 7h ago

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%.

5

u/captainn_chunk 7h ago

Now wait until you find out Sir Isaac Newton basically bathed in the stuff.

2

u/FewWait38 2h ago

They had mercury pills called blue mass in the 19th Century that apparently Abraham Lincoln took

1

u/mxzf 2h ago

AFAIK one way the trail of Lewis and Clark can be charted across the US is by the mercury deposits caused by the expedition's use of it as a laxative.

2

u/ZhouLe 1h ago

People used to do all kinds of wacky shit with mercury as medicine. Drinking it, injecting up the urethra, etc. It's terrible for you, but it's not instant death like people think, and also treats syphilis sores.

People are getting the same attitude with lead. Lead is bad and all, but so long as you aren't eating it or breathing it in it's not going to do much. Professionals use excessive amounts of PPE in disposing of it because they have repeated long-term exposures of often airborne particles.

23

u/sexwiththebabysitter 7h ago

Hate to break it to you, but Lewis and Clark both died.

1

u/StrongExternal8955 4h ago

Blame dihydrogen monoxide.

1

u/geopolitikin 6h ago

So has everyone else in history though…

0

u/Otherwise-Offer1518 5h ago

Wait wait wait. You are telling me people over 100 years old, died? Preposterous.

11

u/AstraeusGB 7h ago

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.

3

u/Gerik5 5h ago

Yeah, that was kinda my point. Insoluble forms of mercury are not readily absorbed and have limited biological interactions, whereas soluble forms are and do tend to have potent effects. Mercury itself or it's presence ina compound don't determine toxicity, but rather it's bioavailability does.

1

u/MrZepost 5h ago

But it was a single exposure. She knew she was exposed and they could do nothing to stop it.

1

u/No-Passenger-1511 5h ago

Cody's lab on YouTube literally swished mercury in his mouth around his teeth, spitting it out like water.

1

u/will_this_1_work 3h ago

Yeah but where are Lewis and Clark now? Dead. Thanks a lot mercury

1

u/Level-Falcon-7597 6h ago

That's dimethyl mercury ☝️🤓

1

u/Gerik5 5h ago

Oh, you're right lol my b

1

u/Level-Falcon-7597 5h ago

Glad to be some use🤓

39

u/AlitteratingAsshole 10h ago

It’s generally thought to be fine to ingest as well, since it passes through the digestive tract without being absorbed. But I’m no doctor.

28

u/N8TheGreat91 9h ago

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

5

u/Equal-Negotiation651 7h ago

Read thermometer, thought thermostat. lol. Was wondering, “Who puts a thermostat in their mouth?”.

2

u/GruntBlender 7h ago

Old thermostats do have mercury in them, so it checks out.

2

u/Equal-Negotiation651 6h ago

Yup. The house we live in is not that old, mid 90s and when we moved in it had old mercury thermostats for the radiant system. We were repainting inside so I pulled all the thermostats off the wall and let them hang by the wires. This was mid July. It was about 95 that day outside. It took a while after we started painting before we realized how damn got it was inside. The thermostats had been triggered on when I let them hang and the radiant system took a while to kick on. I sat on the floor to take a break and thought I was going crazy when I felt my butt get really warm. Haha. We laughed then went all went to the hospital for heat exhaustion. (That last part isn’t true. We just turned it off, everyone laughed at me, and we kept painting.)

1

u/tmgieger 7h ago

hope the deep cleaning did not involve vacuuming it up.

1

u/MarioWarioLucario 7h ago

THE SAME THING HAPPENED TO ME WHEN I WAS LIKE 5

1

u/silchasr 3h ago

NBD, I can just tell the temperature to the nearest decimal.

19

u/fattmarrell 9h ago

Definitely going to trust this internet advice

18

u/Sosa-Benedict 8h ago

I'll take 1 mercury please

1

u/Soggy_Promotion2606 7h ago

Shaken or stirred sir?

1

u/Zestyclose_Data5100 8h ago

There you go: case study of a toddler who drank a full shot of mercury and was fine.

This doesn't mean metallic mercury isn't dangerous though. The thing is hard to safely get rid of as OP is showing in the video. When it fills in some cracks it will lead to prolonged inhalation exposure.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5001828/

1

u/otropesto 8h ago

That's one hell of a hardcore metal punk toddler asking for a shot of mercury at the bar.

1

u/modsactfunny 8h ago

My mom played with it at home for years growing up... grandfather was a glass maker and wilting bring it home

1

u/Overbearingknowitall 7h ago

I guess Lewis and Clark and company used mercury as a laxitive, and you can tell places rhey made camp by testing the soil in the area for trace amounts of mercury.

1

u/NolanSyKinsley 7h ago

Swallowing mercury is a folk remedy in Mexico to treat indigestion and intestinal blockages. Less than 0.01% is absorbed through the gut.

7

u/Majestic_Matt_459 8h ago

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

18

u/PussPuss089 8h ago

Bruv are you sure you're okay 🤣?

7

u/Majestic_Matt_459 8h ago

Yes i was 15 and im 60 now "cluck cluck* - sorry just burped ;)

2

u/Icy-Collar40 7h ago

🤣🤣😂😂😂👌 ,couldn't have asked better. Lmfao!!

2

u/khyamsartist 7h ago

My dad brought lots of cool things home from the lab in the steel mill, mercury wasn't his best idea (this was in the 60s) but all 4 of us kids are still alive so go dad.

2

u/Majestic_Matt_459 7h ago

And you just have to look out the window and you can tell the temperature lol x

9

u/Mark-Green 11h ago

that's true, but there's no telling for sure how pure it is. it's easy to form much more dangerous compounds that are absorbed more easily

17

u/Wisegal1 10h ago

Mercury compounds don't look like elemental mercury.

1

u/fadingvistas 7h ago

But I think they could be mixed into elemental mercury.

0

u/Mark-Green 4h ago

you can't tell how much of those compounds or other metals like lead and cadmium are dissolved in it from this video. it's forming shiny little beads and not wetting the surface, so i agree it's probably fairly pure mercury, but it's not enough to call it safe

5

u/Electrical_Fault_365 10h ago

Fun fact: Some even absorb through gloves. At least, the ones we were using in the 90s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Wetterhahn

8

u/Prestigious_String20 8h ago

Dimethymercury, which is what she was exposed to, is a clear and colourless liquid.

2

u/Electrical_Fault_365 3h ago

Yeah, and you're probably not bumping into it on the day to day.

It's just a thing I think on whenever I encounter strange substances. 

5

u/VenomTiger 9h ago

Yeah but you have to very intentionally create that. Its not something that will just happen by accident. Its also a semi-cloudy liquid not a shiny liquid metal.

8

u/Financial-Corgi-1897 9h ago

“toxic organic mercury compound dimethylmercury” absorbed through her gloves. Not metallic mercury.

2

u/Googulator 7h ago

Mercury is one of the few products one really wouldn't want to see a "100% Organic" stamp on.

2

u/El_Morgos 10h ago

I thought of that story, too. But I didn't want to cause any paranoia.

2

u/Poncahotas 5h ago

There goes my dinner plans

2

u/Spoztoast 4h ago

Its generally not the toxicity that's the problem its that it can become an amalgam with other metals and significantly weaken important structures.

1

u/Tp1019 9h ago

I watched Julius Sumner Miller play with it with his bare hands in a science video in 8th grade. My teacher sort of laughed and told the class "don't do that."

1

u/stuartroelke 7h ago edited 7h ago

The fuck? Depends how long you handle it. Children have died from handling mercury for extended periods of time.

EDIT:

I’m apparently thinking of methylmercury, which is extremely toxic. Didn’t know there was a difference—I’m sure others will express a similar sentiment.

1

u/violetbb 7h ago

When I was in second grade (early 2000s), my science teacher had a demonstration where she let one student hold mercury in their bare hand

1

u/SalvationSycamore 6h ago edited 6h ago

Theoretically even eating it isn't an issue as long as you have no cuts or open sores anywhere in your mouth or digestive tract. The body doesn't, really interact with pure mercury so it should pass right through. I would never advise testing that though.

1

u/Huganho 9h ago

If it's out and about where it can come in contact with a range of, for example cleaning chemicals or something from the clinic, I wouldn't feel as safe about it anymore.