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Ok, my IPC class was doing an experiment today to separate ethyl alcohol and water by boiling it. It started to boil, but our teacher said if we made it too hot, the water would evaporate too (I'm smart, I already knew all that, but I had a little brain lapse). It looked like normal steam coming out, so I (stupidly) figured it was water. I accidentally took a kind of big breath of it while I was checking to make sure. After that my lungs were burning for a while and still are. It makes me run out of breath real quick. Does anyone know how long it'll take this to go away? It wasn't too much, because we weren't allowed to use very much ethyl, but it still burnt pretty bad.
By the way, I do realize that was idiotic. (link)
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Things could be worse; you could have inhaled isopropyl alcohol vapor instead, which could easily have blinded or killed you. Ethyl alcohol, although still potentially dangerous (after all, it kills about 100,000 people in the US each year), is less directly toxic.
According to this website ( http://www.camd.lsu.edu/msds/e/ethanol.htm ), "exposure of humans to 1000-10000 ppm has caused temporary irritation of the upper respiratory tract and coughing; and if continued, central nervous system depression with headache, stupor, fatigue, dizziness, drowsiness, dullness, lassitude and loss of appetite may occur."
It sounds as if you have the upper respiratory tract irritation, but not the other symptoms. So you're probably okay. But if you don't feel better in a day or two, you should call your doctor.
Science classes can be dangerous places. When I was in high school a bunch of idiots thought it would be funny to use a mirror in physics class to shine a laser into people's eyes while the teacher was out of the room. I went after him and told him what they were doing; I snitched, and I'm proud of it. :D
He was able to stop them before they damaged anyone's corneas.
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Rating: 5
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Thanks, it's gone away mostly. I had a strep throat before I inhaled, so that just made it a little worse, but it's improving pretty fast now.
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