A Night of the Thermometer Terror

It was a quiet Sunday night in the nation's capital, and a couple was just about to have some pumpkin pie and mint tea, before heading to bed. While the tea was brewing, the woman was cleaning up the clutter that had accumulated on top of a drawer over the past days; receipts, sun glasses, a thermometer. She walked to the bathroom with a thermometer in her hand, and reached for its case. She opened it, and slid the thermometer in ... all the way through, and to the floor, where it exploded into zillion pieces of shattered glass, a puddle of mercury on the floor and small droplets of mercury on the floor, walls and the door.

PERKELE, she said, loud and firm. Her husband, who knew well enough the meaning of this Finnish word, came to see what what had happened. She knew that breaking a thermometer is not a good thing because mercury is poisonous. He heard her saying this, but couldn't resist the curiosity to poke the mercury, when she stepped away from the bathroom. It was liquid indeed.

"What should we do? How do we clean this mess?" they asked from each other. "Google will know they answer", they thought, and so it did. In order to clean a small mercury spill, like a thermometer, one needs rubber gloves, protective eyewear or safety glasses, clothing that can be worn and later discarded, eyedropper, large trash bags, large tray or box, plastic bags with a zipper seal, paper towels, facial tissues or toilet paper, rags, tape - duct, masking or packing, stiff paper, plastic dust pan, wide-mouth containers with tight fitting lids, flashlight, commercially available mercury spill kit (optional).

It was 10 pm on Sunday, and this was getting too serious. They called 911 to ask what to do with a broken thermometer. 911 advised to open all doors and windows to air out any toxic fumes. 911 said someone will be sent over soon. "Hooray, we're saved!", the couple thought.

Soon there was a knock on the door. Two firemen and one firewoman walked in, and inspected the scene. They said they couldn't do anything, because they were not the team specialized in hazardous materials. "But the HazMat team was on their way", they told the couple. So the couple and the firepeople sat down and had some well brewed mint tea.

The HazMat captain was the first one to arrive, and he ordered everyone into the corridor, away from the toxic fumes. He interviewed the couple. "How did this happen? Did you touch it? Are you pregnant?" He made thorough notes. Soon his team of five men arrived - two in full protective gear with gas masks. The couple looked at each other thinking that it's good they didn't clean it themselves, if it is that serious!

For the next 30 min the HazMat team worked every inch of the tiny bathroom, cleaning the floor, walls and door thoroughly with tape. As requested, they checked the floors of the bedroom and living room with a bright flashlight too, since there was a possibility that some mercury escaped in the woman's woollen socks before she realized to take them off. While the team was removing the mercury, the only thing the woman was able to think was "why on earth I didn't vacuum today, the bathroom corners are full of dust!"

Finally the team was ready. Everything that had touched the scene had to be discarded. Ikea carpet, the man's socks and the woman's woollen socks, which had been knitted by her mom. The HazMat team packed these items together with their gear, and left.

The couple looked at each other without really knowing what to think. "We are safe now? Were we in a serious danger earlier, to be poisoned by a thermometer? What actually just happened here, were the firemen and HazMat team actually real?" ... "Is there a candid camera somewhere???"

All they knew was that it was midnight, the bathroom floor was shining clean, and the hand-knitted woollen socks would be destroyed as hazardous material.