you guys know i work in a paper mill. Anyways, part of my job is that I have to cover openings for Assistant Recaust Operator... So I was doing a round of tests on just the slaker, white liquor storage and digester and I splash some 210F white liquor on my arm... not only does it fucking burn, but it fucking BURNS! I never have to worry about hair growing on my forearm in that spot again! So I stuck it up and deal with it, heading into the recaust lab to start my tests when the aforementioned white liquor squirts out of the pipette and all over my left hand. So now, I have a hot, caustic solution on my hand. Swell. Fabulous. Wonderful. Fuck.
For those of you not familiar with white liquor, it's an extremely nasty caustic solution used in a pulp mill digester. It's slimey, burns very much bad and doesn't want to come off once on your hand! All in all, a wonderful night.

Put butter on it.

Sounds pretty damn nasty!

That sucks man. Hope that all works as well as possible. Pics or it didn't happen! (j/k)

Posted by trent That sucks man. Hope that all works as well as possible. Pics or it didn't happen! (j/k)

it looks like really bad welt or blister on my forearm and left hand. believe it or not, since it kills everything at the skin level, I don't really feel anything as hard to believe as that sounds. This white liquor is orange-clear, almost like gasoline. It's a strong caustic produced by introducing green liquor into a slaker with powder lime. It generates its own heat during the recausticization process. We use it in the digester to digest the lignin from the woodchips.

i should've been more careful, but I was in a hurry, hustling to get my numbers in. (We use what's called an 'effective' to tell the computer model what quality liquor us being sent to the digester).

Pics (with butter in the wound) are necessary so as to assess my level of interest.

Was this before or after I spoke to you Sam?

Shael

Aw, Sam, that sucks. I'm sorry that happened. I'm glad it was your hand/forearm, though, and not something detrimental like your face, neck, or chest.


Have you ever had nerve damage? At least when it is mostly healed and your nerve endings begin to grow back, you'll get to play with the weird sensations! RIGHT??? (I've been playing with fucked up nerve endings in my ankle/foot for several months, now.)

<3 Really though, I'm sorry to hear this. What are the doctors saying (please tell me you went to the doctor) about how recovery will be?

Reminds me of a time my friend and I were inside one of Domtar's mills and were having a look around the liquor tanks without really knowing anything about the hazards. I remember warning my friend not to get any of the white stuff on their hands, but only because I figured it was caustic lime or something to that effect.





Rest of the set is here: http://www.uer.ca/~nel58/photos/22453/


Oh yeah.. and hopefully that heals up alright for you.

I thought the use of napalm on civilians was banned in 1980 by the United Nations under the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons?

Posted by big dave I thought the use of napalm on civilians was banned in 1980 by the United Nations under the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons?

Yeah...and...?

Posted by KublaKhan Yeah...and...?

Posted by Samurai For those of you not familiar with white liquor, it's an extremely nasty caustic solution used in a pulp mill digester. It's slimey, burns very much bad and doesn't want to come off once on your hand!

Ouch.
Sorry.
Burns are the worst injuries.
Your job scares me very much.

Posted by DevilC Ouch. Sorry. Burns are the worst injuries. Your job scares me very much.

sincerely, we really pay it no mind... it's weird that when work with something and become comfortable with it, the fear factor drops exponentially. I've had a flush water line blow off the spent acid T... granted it was 96% was water, not sulfuric, but for that split second, I was certain I was covered by 97% sulfuric acid. My clothes look like I have huge junkie moths with all the holes in them from the Chlorine Dioxide. The caustic makes my hands dry up. We routinely get gassed either with mild H2S or ClO2... it's just like a background noise.

weird.

Well, I am glad it's you making the paper, not me.
Thank you.
I have had many dangerous jobs and have been pretty badly injured on the job (IED anyone?) - but working in a factory with boiling hot shit flowing around in pipes really makes me uneasy.

Posted by Samurai sincerely, we really pay it no mind... it's weird that when work with something and become comfortable with it, the fear factor drops exponentially.