It was reported that a refrigerated truck in Henan Province illegally carried 8 people to death by suffocation, and the latest news showed that the styrofoam box in the carriage contained goods and dry ice.
Dry ice is solid carbon dioxide that has the potential to cause suffocation in small or confined spaces.
This is a case report from last year, which occurred at the University of California in the United States.
Because of the epidemic, the business of delivering dry ice to laboratories was terminated at that time, and chemical laboratories needed to go to special stores to pick up dry ice by themselves. On a statutory holiday, no one goes to work, but a hard-working chemistry graduate student goes to fetch dry ice by himself at 8 o'clock in the morning.
The dry ice is stored in the blue box in Figure 1, and the graduate student is less than 163 meters tall, and the sides of the box are higher than his waist. Because there was not much dry ice in the box, he needed to bend down and reach the bottom of the box to get the dry ice.
After taking 180 pounds of dry ice, he suddenly felt dizzy, short of breath and lost consciousness. All at once he fell and sat down next to the box. After ten minutes, the graduate student slowly woke up and called for help.
No one was there at the time, only the surveillance system filmed the whole process. The two photographs on the left of Figure 2 show the graduate student tiptoeing half of his body into the box containing dry ice. On the right is him sitting on the outside of the box. If you accidentally plant it in a box, you will say goodbye. Carbon dioxide released from dry ice can cause suffocation or even death in large amounts or in a confined environment.
There have been other cases of suffocation caused by dry ice in history, such as an ice cream truck that leaked four boxes of dry ice, causing the driver and passengers to faint and the car overturned. There have also been several accidents in Japan in which relatives and friends have suffocated to death due to carbon dioxide caused by inhaling dry ice by lying their heads down on the bodies in coffins.
Returning to this case, the graduate student survived the "post-traumatic stress syndrome", which caused him to have a strong negative reaction when encountering a similar situation, such as using dry ice or entering an area with cold air.
This incident gives us a few tips:
1. Dry ice has the risk of suffocation, especially in a confined environment.
2. When taking dry ice, you must have a partner present, not alone.
3. There must be standard procedures for taking dry ice, and things must be done in accordance with the regulations. There are also various warnings to be provided next to the refrigerator.
Also, graduate students should not work too hard, and take a break on holidays.
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