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macgyvermedical · 1 year

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Hi! There’s a scene in one of the Little House books where Pa and another guy are digging a well. They put a candle down before they go to make sure there’s good air, and the one time they don’t the other guy passes out and Pa has to rescue him. What actually happened there (like what kind of gas would do that, etc)? Howdid they deal with that kind of thing in mines back then, if it was an issue? How would you deal with that if you were digging a well today? Did they do the first aid right? Do you have any whumpy ideas based on this scenario?

My best guess here is that there was a buildup of carbon dioxide in the bottom of the well.

Carbon dioxide is heavier than air, so it tends to displace the normal mix of oxygen and nitrogen that we breathe. We also breathe it out as a normal part of our metabolism, so when Pa and his friend were working in the well, they were adding more and more carbon dioxide. As the well got deeper, less and less of it was able to escape, and it pushed the oxygen and nitrogen up the well shaft.

A candle (and any fire) needs oxygen to burn, so if it is in an environment of low oxygen (because carbon dioxide displaced it all), it will go out. Humans also need oxygen, or we will pass out and eventually die.

I did a post on this here.

If you were digging a well similar to Pa's today, you'd at least want to point a fan down into it to move fresh air to the bottom and flush out the higher carbon dioxide air that was collecting at the bottom. This wouldn't be foolproof, especially for a very deep well, but it's better than just winging it.

As for first aid, there's not a lot to do- essentially just move the person to fresh air. If they weren't breathing, providing rescue breathes (or CPR if the person didn't have a pulse) until they started breathing on their own would be all one could really do.

Now, carbon dioxide isn't the only gas that can displace oxygen, and it's not the only poison gas that can build up in confined spaces like mines, wells, septic tanks, cisterns, etc... For that matter, it's not the only poison gas that humans interact with.

Many mines, especially coal mines, run the risk of filling with natural gas if a pocket of gas is opened in the mining process. Natural gas is largely made of methane- a colorless, odorless gas that can both displace oxygen and explode if exposed to a flame or spark.

Since the industrial revolution, steam engines (and later internal combustion engines) have been used to make the mining process more efficient. This has made much deeper mines possible, but it also causes a buildup of carbon monoxide- again, a colorless, odorless gas that poisons people by displacing oxygen in people's bodied. These engines also off-gas carbon dioxide, which, as stated above, tends to displace oxygen in the environment.

In mines most of this buildup of poison gas is (and pretty much always has been) mitigated through ventilation systems of varying complexity. Back around the turn of the century this was as simple as having 2 entrances to a mine and putting a fan facing outward at one of the entrances. But ventilation can only do so much, and there could always be pockets of gasses that aren't flushed out by a ventilation system that could do real harm to human miners.

And since all of these gasses are nearly impossible for humans to detect until it is too late, something other than a human needs to be used.

Today, this is often done via gas-detecting computerized sensors. From about 1850 to the 1990's however, the detectors were birds. Birds have a high metabolism, so are overcome much more quickly by a drop in oxygen levels than humans are. If a bird fell off it's perch, a miner would know to get to a better ventilated section of the mine ASAP. Contrary to popular belief, the birds didn't frequently die, and were often treated as pets when they weren't in the mines.

Birds were also used to detect poison gasses during both World Wars and the Gulf war, since well into the 1990's computers that could detect poison gasses or changes in oxygen concentration in real time were prohibitively expensive.

#whump reference #writing reference #poison gas

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lumpofwhump · 2 years

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Replaceable, Part 1

Content: Lab whump, spy whump, whumper to whumpee, multiple whumpers, reluctant whumper, poison gas, manhandling, lady whump

Director David Richardson's hand had pressed heavily down on Barclay's tense shoulder that afternoon as they'd watched the footage of his last interaction with a lab subject.

"NO, NO, STOP!" the young woman on the screen howled through sobs, frantically pounding on the reinforced glass of the chamber she'd been locked in. She was new, or at least she had been. No burns, or implants or anything. For all Barclay knew, she might've been one of the subjects he'd picked up the previous week. "What did I ever do to you?!"

"I'd save my breath if I were you," he heard his past self say in a curt tone. He wondered if his voice always sounded that annoying, or if it was just the quality of the recording. "You're going to need it."

She didn't listen. They rarely did. With begging having failed, next came the insults. Nothing that really landed anymore. Some of them he even had to agree with.

"Someone get this started already," he'd said to a junior lab technician, trying to sound bored rather than on edge. Unsuccessfully, as it turned out.

The kid had hesitated, his gazed fixed on the screaming subject.

"Quit stalling, would you?" his past self demanded. "Or do I have to come over there and press the button myself?"

Even sitting there watching this play out hours later, Barclay still felt relieved when the tech muttered a quick, "Yes, sir," and tapped a few things on the screen in front of him. Several years into this job and he still hated having to do it himself.

A second later, pixelated clouds of gas flooded the chamber. It was supposed to be some new form of crowd control they were testing, like tear gas on steroids. The subject's screaming reached a crescendo as the stuff made contact with her flesh, only to be replaced by hacking coughs as she inevitably inhaled it.

"Keep it going," he heard himself say half a minute in, a tinge of uncertainty having crept into his voice.

The Director gripped him tighter at this change in tone, fingers drumming against his shoulder with barely contained irritation. He went rigid and bit down on his lower lip with oversized front teeth, knowing what was coming next on screen.

Still, he flinched at the loud thunk from the chamber... or rather the memory of what he'd seen when he'd looked. A hand reaching out through the sickly yellow gas, blistered all to hell, leaving a trail of blood as it slowly slid down the glass until it disappeared back into the cloud.

"Okay, we can switch it off," the Barclay onscreen said shakily.

After a long moment of tense silence, he heard the young lab tech speak up. "It's on a timer, sir... we've still got 35 seconds left."

"Forget about the timer, just, just, just turn it off," Barclay's past self snapped in reply. "We have what we need. We're done. Experiment over, okay?!" With that, he strode over and shoved the lab tech aside, frantically tapping the screen in front of him to stop the flow of gas and have clean air pumped in to replace what remained.

The Director reached over to pause the footage before he had to see the girl's burnt, crumpled, and trembling form for a second time. Barclay had the sinking feeling that was the extent of the mercy he was going to get during this meeting.

There was a long, uncomfortable silence before he forced himself to look over to his boss, fidgeting nervously as he spoke. "Sir, I can explain --"

Without warning, the Director cut him off by backhanding him across the face, knocking him out of his chair. He hit the floor with a surprised yelp, and flinched again, expecting that his reaction would earn him another blow.

"Get off the floor," the Director snapped.

Barclay obediently pushed himself to his feet and forced himself to meet his mentor's flinty eyes with his own mismatched pair.

"You were saying," the Director said in a chilling tone, "that you had an explanation for wasting time and resources by tainting the results of our experiments?"

Barclay swallowed. "Continuing the experiment would've been a waste, sir. She... I mean, the subject," he quickly corrected himself, "would've had to be replaced after --"

"So you find a replacement," the Director cut him off. "God knows the city hasn't run out of homeless people. Or have you gotten squeamish about that part of your job too?"

Barclay looked down and shook his head. "N-no sir," he said in a low tone.

The Director looked unconvinced, and gestured to the lab tech on the screen in front of them. "As of this afternoon, your assistant there will be taking over for you as Lead Technician."

"WHAT?!" Barclay shouted in dismay before he could think himself, then reflexively cringed, bracing for the Director's response to this disrespect.

But the Director only looked at him coldly. "Until you can handle the kind of work we do here in the labs, I'll be giving you other assignments. Who knows, they might even be a better fit for you."

"What do you need me to do, sir?" Barclay asked quickly, doing his best to ignore the contemptuous edge to his mentor's voice.

The Director handed him a bag in answer.

Barclay opened it to find a collection of electronics, small, simple-looking, and discreet. "Listening devices...?" he ventured.

The Director nodded. "You're not the only one who's lost his stomach for experimentation recently. My co-director has gone soft as well. He falls for one of the subjects - my subject - and all of a sudden he's become a reformer." He rolled his eyes. "He could make a lot of problems for us if he keeps on like this. Anything you could dig up to prevent that would be appreciated."

"So what, do you want me to put these in his office or something?" Barclay asked.

"His mansion," the Director corrected. "Get in quickly, find some good spots to place them, and get the hell out of there. You can manage that much, can't you, Clay?"

The answer, as it turned out, was no. No, he could not. He'd made it into the mansion without anyone noticing, but that was about the best that could be said.

"OW, FUCK, OW. Let me --" he let out an indignant sound of pain and frustration as he struggled uselessly against two taller and much stronger private security guards as they dragged him to the mansion's study.

"Let you go?" one of the men said with a chuckle. "Sure." He and his colleague abruptly let go of Barclay, only to roughly push him toward their boss's desk. Unprepared for his sudden release, the scrawny young man stumbled and fell forward onto the floor with a grunt. He looked back at the two men with a resentful glare that only got him a couple of smirks in return.

"We found these on him, sir," the other security guard said, tossing the listening devices they'd dug out of his pocket clear over his head onto the desk.

John Thornton said nothing for a long moment, and Barclay didn't dare look up to meet his eyes. Still, he could easily picture the look of icy contempt on the face of his mentor's rival. This was far from the first time he'd been on the receiving end of it.

"Looks like your boss is getting desperate, Fletcher," he finally commented, sounding more amused than anything as he reached over to pick up and inspect one of the bugs Barclay had been sent to install.. "And like he'll be needing to find himself a new... assistant." His tone suggested this was far too generous a description for the burglar still on the floor in front of him.

Barclay stared sullenly at the ground, stubbornly refusing to talk, but he felt his chest tighten with anxiety. Losing his job was the best he could hope for.

His blood ran cold, though, when Thornton added, "I'm thinking I might do my old friend the favor of handling the hard part myself. He's always had a soft spot for you for whatever reason."

"Wait, what?!" Barclay abruptly scrambled to his feet with a shaky breath, looking for any way out with wide eyes full of panic. The windows behind the desk were shut and locked, though, and the only door out of the study was the one he'd just come through. He made a desperate rush back for the hallway, but one of the two security guards easily grabbed him, wrenching his arm back. He let out a yelp of surprise and tried to pull away, kicking at the other guard's shin and trying to stomp down on his foot as he approached, but this only earned him a rough knee to the tailbone. He did his best to bite back a screech, but in doing so he lost focus on trying to escape. By the time he could focus on anything else but pain, both men had a firm hold on him.

"You can't just...! Look, if I go missing, the Director's going to come looking for me," he sputtered, continuing to try to slip out of his captors' grasps. "A-and if he finds my body, or. Or if someone here rats you out... you wouldn't be the first director to become a subject!"

"Take him to the lake," Thornton ordered his staff in a casual tone, smirking at Barclay's threats but otherwise ignoring them. "Oh, and don't bother wasting a perfectly good duffel bag on this one."

This is the first half of what @skinofafish and I submitted for the Hurt and Comfort whump anthology. Directors Thornton and Richardson are @skinofafish's OCs.

#whumper to whumpee #reluctant whumper #multiple whumpers #lab whump #spy whump #lady whump #poison gas #manhandling #Barclay Fletcher #Director David Richardson #Director John Thornton

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