Using urine as a gas mask.

[SteveSS]

I'm watching a Chinese war movie and the Japanese throw gas bombs into the warehouse the Chinese are in. They're all yelling, "Piss in a towel and hold it to your face!" That was just too much, I had to look it up. It actually works for Chlorine gas. The urine crystalizes the Chlorine. Who knows, it could save your butt someday.

I was a geologist on an oil well we were drilling and we hit H2S. Very poisonous, second only to Cyclon B the Germans used. No one was hurt but we were lucky. All the roughnecks had to shave off any facial hair and wear gas masks until we could get it under control.

A different time we hit a shallow gas pocket. The drilling mud started erupting out of the hole. We didn't have a BOP (blow out preventer) I was in charge and the only thing I could think of was when it happened in the John Wayne movie, Hellfighters, when a spark lit the gas on fire. I had them shut everything down and we waited for two days while the well blew mud and rocks out 100 yards in every direction. There are a thousand ways to get killed on a drilling rig.

 

[Photon440]

That was a well known option for escaping gas attacks in WWI. The US troops did it. What they perhaps didn't know is that water is just as effective in stopping chlorine gas.

 

[SteveSS]

I'm no expert but...

If it's just chlorine, it's better than just your lungs. With chlorine-phosgene, the chlorine will, theoretically, be limited by the ammonia in the urine (depending on concentration); however, you'll still get boned by the phosgene. That's why, immediately after the first gas attack at Ypres, these were issued as fast as possible. They were used as a stop gap until other gas masks were developed and deployed.


Could the ammonia help?

 

[Richard Cranium]

Did they try flatulence as a gas mask first?

 

[ckessel]

I'll bet it has a bit of a wang to it.