Don't Breathe Refrigerant at 8:00 PM

Note: I wrote this post last Saturday at the 4H Fair, but totally forgot I had it.  So it’s a bit outdated, and I was going to tell the helium story here, but that will have to wait for next time.  It’s been long enough since I posted that I figured it’d be nice to just get something going.

I am now at the ultra high-tech 4H Fair in Greentown, Indiana.  Unfortunately, the internet connection is not working for me.  On the bright side, the library booth next to me has a video that they’re playing at an annoying volume so that I get to listen to that over and over.  Why they’re playing it is another story, because there’s no one here.  I’ve been here for about a half hour, and I’ve seen like five people pass by.  Good times.  It’ll get busy in a couple hours for sure, though.  This place gets quite crowded in the evening.  But anyway, on to the subject of the post.

As you may know, Zimm and I work at a plasma donation facility.  The plasma that we collect from donors has to be kept at a temperature of -20 degrees at the warmest until it’s used by the company for various vaccines, etc.  There are two different freezers that we use:  the shock freezer and the storage freezer.  The shock freezer is where the plasma goes immediately after it is collected, and it has to stay there for at least 3 hours while it freezes.  This freezer is kept at about -50 degrees, which is about 10 degrees colder than the storage freezer.  The freezer temperatures are monitored via an alarm system.  When the temperature gets above -34 on either one, an alarm goes off, and if no one is at the center, one of the managers gets a call at home to come check things out.  This has been your background.

So on Sunday, I’m relaxing at my house.  At about 5:00, the phone rang and it was the alarm company.  The shock freezer was getting too warm, they said, and so I hopped in the car and headed to work.  I figured I’d just be in and out, as I’d be able to move the plasma from the shock freezer to the storage freezer and leave.  If there was nowhere to move the plasma, I’d have to try and figure out what was wrong and monitor the temperature until it was back in range, or call the freezer repair guys if necessary.  But in this case the plasma could be moved, so it wouldn’t take long.

Well, when I got to the freezer and started emptying out the plasma, I noticed a strange smell, but I didn’t think much of it.  I wondered briefly what would happen if the smell turned out to be some gas that could knock me out or something.  What if I couldn’t get out before I was unconscious?  I had brought Jessica and Luke with me, but they would hardy be able to drag me out of there, especially with a gas leak. But I didn’t worry about it.  This had happened before.  

Not a minute later, my ears started to ring.  I thought that was a bit curious, as there was no loud noise or anything.  I kept moving the plasma, and then I started to get lightheaded.  I decided it was time to get out of there before I passed out.  When I got out, I had to sit down for a few minutes to get my bearings.  I don’t scare easy, but that shook me up a bit.  Not so much the feeling, but what would have happened if I didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late.  

So anyway, I called the freezer guys, and they sent someone out who told me that there was a massive refrigerant leak that caused all the refrigerant to flow out of the freezer.  That’s a lot of refrigerant, in case you’re wondering.  So I didn’t really almost die there, but it certainly wasn’t the safest situation.  The larger annoyance to me was that I had to hang around on Sunday night until the repair was finished, which took until about 11:00.  Good times.