All people, to one degree or another, take care of their health. When malaise occurs, body temperature should be measured. This simple and safe procedure allows you to quickly and accurately determine the state of the body.
More often, mercury thermometers are used for this purpose, as they are inexpensive and more accurate than their electronic counterparts. The disadvantage of glass mercury thermometers is that they tend to break.
Leaked mercury can cause serious harm to the human body, so you need to be able to quickly and correctly remove it from the surface on which it got. Despite the rarity of such situations, everyone should know how to collect mercury from the floor.
Why is mercury dangerous for humans?
Most often, mercury spills from a broken thermometer or lamp.
Mercury is the only metal that is liquid at room temperature. It is a white-silvery liquid, which begins to evaporate already at +18°C.
In order for mercury to turn into a solid, it must be cooled to -38 ° C, which is difficult to achieve at home. From a broken thermometer, it flows out in the form of balls flying across the floor in all directions. rolled into different places balls of mercury at room temperature begin to evaporate, poisoning the air.
Mercury poisoning occurs when excess mercury vapor enters the human body. When air with a mercury content of 0.25 mg per 1 m3 of air is inhaled, the substance settles in the lungs.
At higher concentrations, liquid metal vapors are absorbed by human lungs and skin.
In one thermometer there are 2 grams of a substance, which in terms of milligrams is 2000 mg. Such an amount of mercury is capable of poisoning from 6000 to 8000 m3 of air during rapid evaporation. The volume of air in an apartment with an area of 50-60 m2 is 125-150 m3. If a thermometer breaks, then the volume of a dangerous substance can be enough to poison 10 people.
The most dangerous is mercury vapor
Poisoning at low concentrations of a substance does not occur instantly, although in some cases a weak organism that is not resistant to mercury can receive an excess dose in a matter of minutes.
After entering the body, mercury settles in human organs, causing great harm to the heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, brain and skin. The first symptoms may appear after a few hours, so it’s hard to immediately make out the degree of poisoning.
Metal vapor poisoning occurs very quickly
The first symptoms include weakness and dizziness. Then comes nausea and migraines. Further, an upset stomach begins, pain in the throat and bleeding from the gums and nose. All this leads to intense fever, coughing and inflammation of the lungs, which are accompanied by edema, including the respiratory tract. In extreme cases, mental breakdown occurs, when the person's consciousness can be shaken.
The great danger lies in the fact that mercury is odorless, tasteless and bright color. The so-called silver water for a long time remain completely invisible to humans.
It is important to know that children and women are more susceptible to mercury poisoning.
Safe disposal of mercury
Before you collect mercury from a broken thermometer, you need to quickly make some preparation. It is also necessary to quickly select suitable tools in order to completely get rid of the harmful substance.
Order of initial actions
If the thermometer breaks, and mercury rolls on the floor with balls, the first step is to take the children out of the room. Then, all those who will not participate in the cleaning, including pets, should leave it.
After all the extra ones have left the room, it is necessary to open the windows so that fresh air enters. The door must be tightly closed. It is desirable to carry out the ventilation procedure so that drafts do not carry air into other rooms.
You can collect metal balls with a syringe or syringe
Before collecting mercury from a thermometer from the floor, it is necessary to protect yourself with gloves and a cotton-gauze bandage. Gloves are desirable to have rubberized or fully rubber. The airway protection bandage can be soaked in a soda solution. This will give you more protection. The bandage can be made independently from bandages or gauze.
You should not step on the balls of mercury, so it is better to put on some shoes wrapped in cellophane on your feet.
Before you remove the mercury, all the fragments of the broken thermometer are collected. In order not to cut yourself, you need to put them carefully in a jar of water, which can later be closed with a lid and given for recycling.
All of these measures must be taken before mercury collection begins. The most important thing is to take care of the safety of others.
How and what is mercury collected
Mercury must be collected in a container with water. This is done so that the liquid metal cools down and stops evaporating. For more information on collecting mercury, see this video:
To collect balls of mercury, the following devices are well suited.
- Syringe - a medical rubber bulb is very well suited for collecting harmful mercury balls. Even balls rolled into the cracks are pulled into it.
- A large syringe without a needle, as well as a syringe, will draw in harmful liquid metal well.
- Mercury balls adhere well to tape, duct tape, and band-aids.
- Using a brush, you can remove the balls of the substance by rolling them onto a sheet of paper or foil. Then, the harmful material collected on the sheet must be placed in a jar of water.
- Cotton products soaked in water sunflower oil or potassium permanganate, can also be used to collect mercury. She will stick to them.
Most importantly, clean up calmly, consistently, and neatly. When using protective equipment, mercury vapor will not be able to do much harm. Therefore, after completing the initial steps in in due course, you can sequentially assemble the rolled balls. It is important to send all collected elements to a container of water, which must be kept closed.
Room treatment and precautions
After cleaning, the room in which mercury has scattered must be thoroughly washed. This can be done using a chlorine-containing liquid. With a solution of chlorine, it is required to wash the floor, baseboard and, if possible, walls. The chlorine solution must be left for 15-20 minutes, then washed off clean water. For more information about the principles of cleaning, see this video:
For 7-10 days, the room needs to be ventilated daily. It is desirable to maintain a high temperature inside the room so that the mercury residues can evaporate and leave the room. Ventilation is carried out with dense closed door to avoid drafts and the movement of potentially dangerous air into other rooms.
It is impossible to stay in the room at night until the prophylactic treatment is completed. A ball of mercury rolled under a baseboard or into another hard-to-reach place can cause considerable harm to human health.
Personal hygiene measures after cleaning
Personal clothing that has been cleaned must be hung outside for ventilation. Then it must be subjected to chemical cleaning.
After cleaning, wash your hands with soap and water. Then you need to thoroughly brush your teeth and rinse your mouth with a solution of manganese. After that, you can take a shower to cleanse the whole body.
As a preventive measure, a person who removed mercury can take up to 10 tablets of activated charcoal. It is also recommended to drink during the day, as much as possible more water, from 3 to 5 liters.
All other interior items that have been in contact with mercury are collected and taken out into the street. It will be possible to use them only after chemical treatment.
The first drug for mercury poisoning - Activated carbon
Depending on the complexity of the situation, you can contact specialized services that will help eliminate the infection. Both state organizations operate on the basis of sanitary and epidemiological stations, as well as private companies certified in this field.
In extreme cases, you can call hotline 01 to the elimination service emergencies for advice and order of actions for a while, while the rapid response car will get there.
Mercury is contained in different amounts in thermometers, thermometers, fluorescent lamps, televisions and other equipment.
When this metal, harmful to human health, enters the open space, it is necessary to carefully and consistently perform the entire range of actions aimed at protecting nearby people.
Mercury vapor is a strong poison. It is important to remember this when in contact with her beautiful white-silver balls.
The thermometer accurately measures the temperature and has a very small error (no more than 0.1 degrees). Therefore, in many medical institutions, the usual thermometer is still preferred. In addition, with the help of a thermometer, body temperature can be measured in several ways (in the armpit, rectally, orally), the surface of the thermometer is easily disinfected, and the device itself does not require mains power or battery replacement. With careful handling, mercury can last for decades, and its fairly low cost (only 20-25 rubles) makes it attractive to the buyer.
Along with undeniable advantages, mercury thermometers also have several significant drawbacks, the main and most serious of which is its fragility. It is very easy to break a mercury thermometer, and this will inevitably lead to air poisoning with poisonous mercury vapor.
Why is a broken thermometer dangerous?
It is worth breaking or breaking a thermometer, as microscopic glass fragments and balls of mercury will instantly appear on the floor. And if glass can cause trouble in the form of cuts, then mercury vapor, being the strongest poison, carries a more serious danger. Due to its properties, the mercury flowing out of the thermometer breaks into many tiny droplets that roll into hard-to-reach places (under the sofa, closet, behind the baseboard, in the cracks of the flooring) and, evaporating, poison the air. If you do not remove all the mercury and the thermometer itself in time, you can get severe poisoning. Accumulating in the kidneys, liver, lungs of a person, a pair of harmful metal causes chronic intoxication, which is manifested by skin rashes, stomatitis, diarrhea, vomiting, chills of the whole body. And prolonged exposure to mercury vapor can affect the human psyche and even cause insanity.
Therefore, it is very important to quickly and accurately collect the contents of the thermometer. For guaranteed cleaning of the premises, you should call the specialists of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, but you can also carry out this procedure yourself, taking all the necessary precautions.
How to collect mercury
If it happened by accident, do not panic. Before you start cleaning up the mercury balls, you must remove all people who will not participate in the cleaning, as well as animals, from the premises. It is very important to open the windows in the house to ventilate the room and close the doors to adjacent rooms so that mercury vapor from a broken thermometer does not spread. It is necessary to collect mercury with rubber gloves, it is better to put on shoe covers on your feet, and cover your mouth and nose with a damp gauze bandage.
In no case should you collect mercury with a vacuum cleaner or a broom. In the first case, once inside, toxic fumes will be blown out of the vacuum cleaner along with the air. In the second, the broom rods can break small balls into even smaller ones, making them more difficult to collect.
The most reliable way to collect mercury, a thermometer is to use an ordinary syringe. Such cleaning will take a lot of time and is quite painstaking, but on the other hand, mercury balls are guaranteed to fall into the cavity of the rubber pear and will not fall apart into smaller parts.
Newsprint soaked in water will also help clean up mercury, as mercury balls will easily stick to it. If the thermometer and mercury has leaked out, you can use adhesive tape or adhesive tape, cotton balls moistened with water or vegetable oil, as well as two sheets of paper, which, according to the principle of a scoop and a broom, carefully collect the contents of a broken thermometer.
Another easy way to collect mercury is to use a medical syringe. After cleaning, it also needs to be sealed in a jar and sent for recycling along with the broken one.
If it so happened that the thermometer crashed on the carpet, then the carpet should be taken out and knocked out in a place where there are no people. The concentration of a hazardous substance from one broken thermometer is not very high; within three days it will evaporate without harming people and the environment.
After the contents of the broken thermometer are safely collected and ready for disposal, the place of the “accident” should be treated with a solution of potassium permanganate (2 g per liter of water). But since this remedy cannot be used in all cases due to the stains it leaves, it is possible to cover the entire area that mercury from a broken thermometer could get into with bleach or any disinfectant containing it. For example, a glass of “whiteness” is taken on a ten-liter bucket of water and the surface is treated with this solution to transfer mercury into a non-evaporable compound. Then we wipe with a soapy solution again, finally removing mercury from the outskirts to the center (100 g of soap powder and 100 g of soda per bucket of water).
Collected mercury should never be disposed of in a garbage chute or sewer. Balls of collected mercury, a broken thermometer, as well as all its contents must be placed in a glass container filled with water, then tightly cork it with a lid and transfer it to the Ministry of Emergency Situations. It should be remembered that a few grams of mercury contained in can poison up to 6000 m3 of air!
Mercury is a liquid metal that, when released from a thermometer, breaks down into many small silver balls. These silver drops evaporate already at room temperature and poison the atmosphere of the room.
Mercury vapor is poisonous (belongs to hazard class I), colorless, odorless and has the ability to accumulate in the human body, which increases the degree of poisoning. Therefore, when breaking a thermometer, it is necessary to take prompt measures to safely collect a toxic substance from the affected surfaces.
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Priority Actions
When emergencies occur at work and spills a large number of mercury, the procedure is known: immediately call the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the demercurization service (removal and decontamination of liquid metal). At home, you can do it yourself with the elimination of the consequences of metal spreading. First, you need to protect the residents of the apartment: take children, pregnant women, the elderly and animals out of it. Further actions relate to the preparation of the premises, tools and equipment of the liquidators of the accident:
- close the door of the room where the incident occurred and open the window, but do not allow a draft;
- take a flashlight to highlight the darkened areas of surfaces;
- put on a respirator or gauze bandage soaked in a soda solution;
- close shoes with shoe covers or garbage bags;
- protect hands with rubber gloves (metal is quickly absorbed through the pores of the skin).
Before collecting mercury, glass fragments must be removed from the surface. Work in a vapor-contaminated atmosphere should be alternated with access to open air every 10-15 minutes of activity.
Removal of liquid metal from surfaces
As a tool for collecting drops of mercury, the following are used: a medical syringe and a rubber douche, a drawing brush and a knitting needle, a sheet of paper or a damp newspaper. Sometimes they use a plaster, adhesive tape, a copper plate and wet cotton wool. It will take and glass jar With cold water for collected mercury balls, it must be hermetically sealed with a tight lid. You should not use a broom or a vacuum cleaner: they will only crush the drops of metal and scatter them around the room. The demercurization process is carried out in three stages:
- 1. Mechanical cleaning of particles. First, illuminate the place where the thermometer fell and carefully examine it. Then the metal drops are collected with the available tool. Finding traces of mercury on clothes and soft toys, put products in bags and take them out into the street: things of no value - in a garbage container, expensive things - on an open balcony to weather dangerous particles. Collecting balls begins with large elements in order to avoid crushing them into small ones.
- 2. Chemical treatment of areas. Produced after removal of all visible particles of mercury from the affected surfaces. At home, solutions based on potassium permanganate (potassium permanganate) are used, adding 1 tablespoon of salt and vinegar to 1 liter of brown liquid. Wipe the cleaned items with a soft cloth moistened with the same composition. After 8 hours, the room is washed with clean water.
- 3. Metal recycling. Collected mercury and used cotton buds, the patch and adhesive tape are lowered into a jar of water and closed, and then transferred to the demercurization service.
Used tools and protective equipment are placed in a bag, tightly tied and taken to the trash. Daily wet cleaning in the apartment after the elimination of a broken thermometer and mercury spilled from it is carried out for one week.
Cleaning the floor from balls
Most often, a mercury thermometer falls on the floor. This can happen anywhere in the apartment. The technology for collecting rolled balls varies depending on the coating, but the basic techniques are the same:
- drops are moved from the affected surface to a sheet of paper used as a scoop with a brush;
- small close balls are collected together, and they are enlarged into one conglomerate;
- scattered particles are removed from the floor with adhesive tape, adhesive tape, adhesive tape or a paper napkin soaked in sunflower oil.
If there is a medical syringe without a needle, you can resort to its help. To do this, you need to bring the hole closer to a small drop of mercury and retract the piston - the particle will get inside. After collecting all the drops, the instrument is placed in a jar of water.
Extraction of mercury from bottlenecks
You can find small balls in hard-to-reach crevices, under the plinth, if you shine a flashlight: they will indicate their presence with a brilliance. Depending on the width of the space, metal is removed from the slots with one of the following tools:
- cotton swab moistened with a solution of potassium permanganate;
- a syringe with a thick needle;
- syringe - on the principle of a vacuum cleaner;
- magnet.
To collect mercury under the plinth, you will have to dismantle it. Reverse installation is possible after chemical treatment of the previously closed space.
It happens that harmful metal ends up in the toilet. There are two ways to remove foreign fluid from the bottom of the cochlea: with an enema (syringe) or a rubber bulb, and with a palm (gloved). First you need to drain the water and block its flow.
Collection from carpet and fabric products
If the thermometer breaks before falling on a soft surface, then the silver balls may end up on the carpet, bed or sofa. There are differences in cleaning metal particles from a flat floor surface and from fabric products:
- 1. The carpet can be cleaned of large drops with a syringe, and then taken outside to weather the microparticles. The second way is to roll it from the edges to the center and, depending on the condition, place it in a garbage container or hang it on fresh air and knock out light blows, pre-laying polyethylene, so as not to contaminate the soil.
- 2. Bed linen, mattresses and upholstery of upholstered furniture absorb liquid metal, so you should not hesitate in this case. To remove mercury from such surfaces, you can use any of the previously mentioned tools: sheets of paper, a syringe, a syringe, a magnet, or tape.
After removing visible balls, it is not possible to apply chemical demercurization due to a change in the color of the product. Replaces its treatment with conventional detergents. Intensive ventilation of the room completes the liquidation of the accident.
The final stage
After demercurization of the premises, it is necessary to wash with soapy water not only the floors, but also the walls, where possible. Fill the cracks with a solution of potassium permanganate. To prevent poisoning of your body:
- take a shower, brush your teeth and gargle weak solution potassium permanganate;
- take activated charcoal - one tablet for every 10 kg of weight;
- drink more diuretic liquids - kvass, juices, tea, coffee (mercury vapor is excreted by the kidneys).
Do not throw the collected metal into the garbage chute and sewerage. Airing things after contact with mercury is carried out for three months.
The thermometer crashed - a catastrophe of an "apartment" scale with possible serious consequences. The article describes all the steps for self-elimination of mercury at the household level.
What is dangerous mercury from a thermometer: symptoms of mercurialism
In the 19th century, mercury was used in the production of felt for hats, and the eccentric behavior of hatters became the source of many anecdotes and funny stories. Over time, when the source of mental deterioration and physical health hatters was identified, chronic mercury vapor poisoning was called "the hatter's disease."
Interesting fact. Lewis Carroll created the image of his character - the Mad Hatter - by studying the anamnesis of real patients-hatters of one of the medical institutions.
Symptoms of the "hatter's disease":
- uncontrollable rhythmic hand movement (hand tremor),
- sudden mood swings: from depression to joy,
- obsessive ideas,
- deterioration of the general physical condition, including dysfunction of the heart, kidneys, lungs.
In science, for the "disease of the hatter" there is a term - "mercurism" (in the table of chemical elements, mercury is listed as Mercury).
Risk of experiencing symptoms mercurialism exists for everyone:
- having an ordinary medical thermometer in the home first-aid kit,
- mercury tonometer,
- using fluorescent lamps.
As soon as the glass capsule breaks, movable mercury balls break free, you are in a panic looking for the answer to the question: “What to do ?!”
What to do if a mercury thermometer breaks at home?
Don't ignore the event!
Calm down, act quickly and collected.
Step 1. Remove children, the elderly and pets from the premises and open windows.
Important! Do not arrange through ventilation! A draft can scatter mercury balls all over the room!
Step 2. Prepare a solution of potassium permanganate.
It is prepared like this:
- Dissolve 2 g of potassium permanganate powder ("potassium permanganate") in a small amount of hot water.
- Add 1 l of potassium permanganate to the resulting concentrate cold water and 1 tablespoon of regular table vinegar.
- To stir thoroughly.
Reference: 1 teaspoon of potassium permanganate powder is equal to 15 g.
Important: Undissolved crystals of potassium permanganate, getting on the skin and mucous membranes, can cause a burn!
In addition, for demercurization (removal of mercury) you will need:
- glass jar with a tight lid. The jar should be partially filled with ordinary water,
- rubber pear (syringe) or medical syringe,
- wide adhesive tape.
Step 3. Put on a damp gauze bandage and rubber gloves. You can replace gloves and shoe covers plastic bags or polyethylene stretch film.
Important. The dressing must be damp, not wet!
Step 4. Collect mercury.
How much mercury is in a thermometer?
Remember: in a medical thermometer there is only 2 g of a toxic substance.
How to collect mercury from a broken thermometer from the floor?
What can't be done?
- Touching the balls of mercury with unprotected hands
- step on mercury
- Sweep with a broom or brush
- Vacuuming with a vacuum cleaner
The simplest and effective way self-demercurization - using adhesive tape.
- Gently stick 20 cm long adhesive tape on the surface with mercury balls and thermometer fragments.
- Remove tape smoothly slow motion, avoiding sharp jerks of the tape.
- Carefully glue the tape into a ball and place in a jar of water.
The operation must be repeated several times until you have collected all the relatively large mercury balls.
Small balls can be collected with a pear or syringe.
Important: Use the pear correctly. Do not press it like a pump, but only suck in air along with mercury.
If the metal ball rolls out of the container, try narrowing the hole with a needle.
As soon as the first ball is "caught" - send it to a jar of water. When all the mercury has been collected, seal the jar with a plastic lid. Place the jar in a cool dark place.
Thoroughly rinse the floor with a solution of potassium permanganate using a cloth (wash the floor with this solution for several days).
Place a napkin, gloves, shoe covers in a hermetically sealed container and fill with a demercurization solution of potassium permanganate (water-manganese solution).
Important: Do not use additional chemicals for wet cleaning after demercurization!
Where to throw away a broken mercury thermometer?
Collected mercury, a container with gloves and other items that have been in contact with mercury balls, take to a mercury collection point. The address of the point can be found in the department of the Ministry of Emergency Situations.
Important!!! Do not pour water with mercury down the drain or in the yard! Do not throw away the jar of mercury in the trash!
What to do if the thermometer crashed on the carpet, how to collect mercury?
Video at the end of the article Deadly mistakes in collecting mercury. How to collect mercury correctly!» will tell you how to remove mercury from the carpet without compromising your health.
After cleaning up mercury:
- roll the carpet from the edges to the center,
- pack as tightly as possible in plastic wrap,
- take it outside the living quarters.
Important!!! Items that have come into contact with mercury must be handed over to the "Point for the Reception of Mercury-Containing Waste"!
Where to take mercury from a broken thermometer: disposal of mercury from a thermometer
- Collect the mercury as described above.
- Fill the place of localization of mercury balls with a solution of potassium permanganate.
Soap and soda solution will also help slow down the process of mercury vapor release. To prepare it you will need:
- 1 l hot water
- 30 g soda
- 40 g grated soap
Mix all ingredients thoroughly until the soap dissolves. Treat the place of localization of mercury with a solution ( after the mercury is collected!).
3. Gather the bed linen carefully (collect by rolling from the edges to the center to prevent small balls from rolling) and place it in a tight plastic bag.
4. Call the representatives of the Ministry of Emergency Situations (phone number "01").
How much to ventilate the room where the mercury thermometer crashed?
IMPORTANT: The room where the mercury device crashed should be ventilated for 7 days after demercurization.
If it is a dwelling, stay in it should be limited to children and the elderly.
Is it dangerous to keep a broken thermometer at home?
Many consider talk about the dangers of mercury as empty air shaking. At the same time, childhood and stories about mercury balls constantly rolling in desk drawers or about pranks with the replacement of coins are always remembered.
The conclusion of all these stories is the same: I lost all my childhood with mercury and is still alive!
However, at the same time, no one talks about the general deterioration of the environment, which leads to a deterioration in the health of not only adults, but also children. The world full of toxic plastic, poisoned water, genetically modified foods.
It is quite difficult for a weakened human immunity to endure a blow with mercury vapor.
How quickly does mercury evaporate from a broken thermometer?
Important: With a maximum allowable concentration of mercury vapor in the atmosphere of 300 ng / m³, within a few minutes after breaking the thermometer, this figure rises to 4783 ng / m³
Fact: 2 g of mercury, evaporating, pollute 6000 m³ of air.
Mercury poisoning from a broken thermometer: symptoms and signs
Mercury is a highly volatile substance. Metal vapors, together with air, enter the lungs. Then, about 80% of the toxic substance, together with the blood, penetrates into all organs of the body and poisons the body.
As a result, a person feels:
- nausea
- breathing difficulties
- joint pain
- headache
- weakness, etc.
Mercury poisoning requires urgent hospitalization: Mercurialism does not spare the central nervous system and kidneys.
Is it dangerous to keep a broken thermometer at home? Science says it's dangerous!
Where to go if the thermometer is broken?
- "Emergency" number, familiar from childhood "01"
- City emergency service
- City Sanitary and Epidemiological Station
Video: Deadly mistakes in collecting mercury. How to collect mercury correctly!
Video: How does mercury destroy brain neurons?
Who among us has never slipped a thermometer out of our hands? And who at the same time knew exactly what to do at home if the mercury thermometer broke? Unfortunately, in such extreme situation many make a lot of mistakes - and mercury is not only dangerous, it can be fatal to humans.
Mercury is chemical element, which has certain properties. In fact, it is a cumulative poison that evaporates if it is in a warm room. Therefore, if a mercury thermometer breaks at home, everyone should know what to do in order to protect themselves and loved ones from serious poisoning.
If the thermometer breaks, then the mercury contained in it is enough to fill approximately 100 mg per cubic meter. That is, its quantity will be more than 300 thousand times higher than the allowable norm for a dwelling. However, by ventilating the apartment, the risk is significantly reduced. In addition, in order for the mercury to evaporate completely, an extremely high temperature is needed. Therefore, if mercury is not removed, its concentration will be exceeded by “only” 100 times.
Mercury vapor is toxic, poisoning occurs imperceptibly
Mercury vapor poisoning is unnoticeable at first, but that makes it even more scary. Mercury accumulates in the body, after which it begins to cause serious malfunctions various systems: nervous, immune, digestive, and also negatively affects the kidneys, eyes, skin. There are many videos that clearly demonstrate how mercury poisoning can adversely affect the human body.
Direct contact with mercury could have occurred several years ago, and the consequences are manifested only in this moment when it is no longer possible to trace the relationship between the disease and its cause.
How to protect yourself
Despite the fact that everyone knows about the dangerous properties of mercury, from time to time thermometers slip out of hands and break. The reason for this is not only a negligent attitude towards a potentially dangerous object, but also simple inattention. To prevent this from happening, you must use the thermometer with caution, following the following rules:
- The thermometer can only be used by people with good coordination, in a sober, conscious state. That is, children, the elderly, people under the influence of any drugs and alcohol should not be given. When measuring temperature in such categories of people, you need to constantly be nearby and control the situation.
- It is necessary to store the thermometer in a special case or container, out of the reach of children.
- When you need to shake the thermometer to return the mercury to its original position, you can only do this with dry hands, away from solid objects, even better over a soft surface - a bed, a sofa.
Store the thermometer in a special protective case
The thermometer crashed
What to do if a mercury thermometer still crashed in an apartment or any other residential area?
First of all, don't panic, take everyone in the household out of the room and ventilate the room (but without drafts - you need to close other windows in the house). If it is warmer outside than in the apartment, warm air will only aggravate the situation, which means you can’t open windows.
Small balls of mercury easily fall into hard-to-reach places
Mercury tends to stick to the surface, so stepping on it is strictly prohibited. Protect all exposed surfaces of your body - gloves, shoes, gauze bandage. At the same time, the clothes will then have to be handed over to specialists, which means that you should choose as a working option something that you don’t mind throwing away.
Once on any surface, mercury turns into tiny balls, which can be divided into even smaller ones. You can collect them using such improvised means as:
- rubber pear;
- two sheets of paper;
- plaster or tape;
- wet cotton or newspaper.
Carefully collect mercury from all cracks with a syringe or a rubber bulb, even a small drop of mercury left in the room can later provoke a serious illness. If it seems to you that the silver balls have rolled behind the baseboard or into other hard-to-reach places, do not be lazy to check whether this is so - remove the baseboard, lift the linoleum, move the cabinet. Often it is a drop of mercury, lost in a crack on a sofa or under a plinth, that is capable of literally poison life for many years. Do not rely on chance, double-check everything even several times, because health is more expensive.
The process of cleaning droplets of mercury with a syringe
If the mercury had to be removed for more than a few minutes, leave the room, breathe in the air by the open window. When the collection is over, drink activated charcoal or another adsorbent. Try to drink more fluids to immediately remove mercury from the body that has entered it.
If a mercury thermometer breaks at home, you can’t do without the help of the Ministry of Emergencies - what to do with mercury, how to properly neutralize it, only specialists know to whom you will hand over the jar with poisonous contents. To call rescuers, call "01".
A visual sequence of actions if you have a broken mercury thermometer
The place where mercury has spilled must be treated with a special solution:
- We make a dark brown, saturated solution of potassium permanganate, add salt (a tablespoon per liter) and acid (for example, vinegar, citric acid). Be sure to put on gloves and use a brush or brush to treat the entire surface where mercury has spilled (do not forget about the cracks). The solution should remain in this place for 7 hours, and periodically it is necessary to moisten this surface with water. Keep in mind that from such a “cocktail”, after 7-8 hours, it is necessary to treat the surface with a soap-soda solution in order to wash off the reaction products (about 50 g of soda and 40 g of soap are added per liter of water). In the next few days, the procedure must be repeated, leaving the potassium permanganate solution on the surface for only one hour.
- There is a second option to neutralize exposure to mercury. Pour Whiteness bleach into a plastic bucket (in a ratio of 1:8 - one part of Whiteness, 8 parts of water). Rinse the hazardous surface with this solution and rinse with water after 15 minutes. Then prepare a solution of potassium permanganate in the same proportion and now treat the place of contamination with it. In the following days, continue to wash the room "with bleach" and try to ventilate it as often as possible. If the solution or sponge is contaminated with mercury during processing, they are also handed over to specialists.
Positive feedback on these demercurization methods is based on the fact that if a mercury thermometer breaks at home, everything must be done to prevent the spread of mercury vapor throughout the apartment and throughout the house.
Mercury Collection Precautions
Due to certain properties of mercury, when collecting it, precautions must be taken to prevent the further spread of toxic metal.
Mercury should be cleaned with protective gloves
What not to do:
- You can’t use a garbage chute or sewer to dispose of a broken thermometer and collected mercury, just don’t throw away rags, sponges or any other means that you used to collect mercury - all this must be handed over to a specialized team;
- A broom is not an assistant in the fight against mercury! Its rods will simply break the poisonous droplets into even smaller ones - and therefore it is better to use a brush;
- It is also impossible to collect balls of mercury with a vacuum cleaner - firstly, because of the blown air, the poison will begin to evaporate faster, and secondly, the mercury will settle on the hose;
- Wash clothes in which you collected poisonous metal in washing machine absolutely impossible;
- If a mercury thermometer crashes on a carpet at home, it will be difficult to clean it yourself, which means it is better to contact the Ministry of Emergency Situations or other specialized services.
Knowing what to do if a mercury thermometer breaks at home, you will be able to prevent serious diseases by your actions.
Symptoms of mercury poisoning
Mercury poisoning can be either acute or chronic. If a person has inhaled mercury vapor from a mercury thermometer that has broken at home, advice on what to do in this situation will only help in identifying symptoms such as weakness, taste of metal in the mouth, discomfort when swallowing food, poor appetite. Also, a person who has been poisoned by mercury vapor can feel sick, and vomiting is also possible.
If you miss these first bells, then the symptoms can intensify up to bleeding gums and loose stools with blood.
If you experience these symptoms, you should immediately call ambulance because severe mercury vapor poisoning can be fatal. Mercury inhalation poses the greatest danger to children and pregnant women. A weakened and unformed organism is not able to withstand contact with a silvery poison.
The main symptoms of intoxication with mercury vapor
As mentioned above, the symptoms of mercury poisoning can not appear immediately after contact with the poison, but after many months and even years. If mercury was not found or it was not cleaned well enough in rooms where a person is often located, then gradually its concentration in the body will exceed the permissible norm and poisoning will begin.
Due to chronic mercury vapor poisoning in humans, the risk of various diseases is significantly increased, this is especially dangerous for women, as it affects the reproductive system.
If you have any concerns that mercury poisoning has happened, be sure to call an ambulance, and try to drink as much liquid as possible before it arrives. Talk to your doctor over the phone about which absorbent medication you can take while you are waiting for an ambulance.
The safety and health of every person is, first of all, in his hands. Often in the most direct sense. Using not only a thermometer, but also any medicines, we must remember that they can save us, or they can kill us. So take your treatment seriously. Caution is never excessive when it comes to life and health. Despite the fact that a mercury thermometer is a familiar item in every home, it can be a mortal danger.
And remember that by taking care of the proper disposal of mercury, you are helping to protect not only yourself and your family from diseases, but also hundreds of people who live in your apartment building. Therefore, treat what happened with all responsibility.
