Many people are faced with such a problem as damage to the mercury thermometer, and this can happen not only to adults, but also to children. If your child breaks a thermometer, there is no need to sound the alarm, just pay special attention to this incident. This situation is serious, so all parents should have an idea of what to do in such cases and what actions to avoid.
In families with children, it is necessary to periodically conduct conversations about the dangers of a broken thermometer, and warn that in such cases parents must be informed immediately, since mercury vapor can cause serious harm to health.
What is the danger of a damaged mercury thermometer?
Mercury is a toxic chemical that can cause serious poisoning. Its harmful particles enter the body through the respiratory tract. And if the level of air pollution with mercury is significantly higher than normal, then mercury can act through the pores of the skin, mucous membranes, affecting all organs and the central nervous system. As a result of poisoning, pneumonia, atherosclerosis, hypotension, tuberculosis, and impaired functioning of the kidneys, gall bladder and liver can develop. And these diseases are usually discovered much later than the incident itself.
Mercury can be especially dangerous for pregnant women and newborns, since poisoning will occur at the stage of formation of the child’s internal organs and cause severe developmental pathologies.
But all the harmful effects on humans are caused by mercury vapor, and not by the metal itself. If the thermometer is damaged, mercury quickly rolls out over the surface in the form of small silver-colored balls. Evaporation of the metal begins at temperatures above 18 degrees. This process is gradual, so you can avoid serious consequences if you promptly and correctly remove and destroy the damaged thermometer and the substance that spilled from it.
The danger of a thermometer broken by a child is that small particles may end up in hard-to-reach places, go unnoticed and continue to cause harm to others. As a result, people in the area where toxic fumes are spread are likely to experience not only a deterioration in their health, but also the development of serious illnesses, including death. It is important that adults immediately learn that the thermometer has broken and take appropriate measures as soon as possible.
What is the danger?
When a mercury thermometer breaks in an apartment, the consequences can be very dangerous. You need to understand what to expect. The mercury contained in the thermometer is considered especially dangerous for humans. In fact, it is a poison with a cumulative property.
This is a unique metal in nature, since at ordinary temperatures it remains in a liquid state. It begins to evaporate, releasing poisons, already at a temperature of +18 degrees. This is precisely the main danger when a mercury thermometer in an apartment breaks.
If a child swallows mercury
Broken mercury can lead to very serious consequences for your current well-being and overall health
The child does not understand the consequences of a broken thermometer. The iridescent beads of mercury can attract a child's attention and make them want to play with, touch, and sometimes taste and swallow them. In addition, the thermometer can be damaged if a child bites off part of it. What are the consequences of mercury entering the body, and what to do if a child swallows mercury?
Most likely, mercury that enters the stomach in the form of globules will leave the body naturally without causing serious harm. A threat to health is created by mercury vapor, which does not have time to be released in a significant volume when passing through the digestive tract. In addition, even a healthy human body contains a small dose of mercury, approximately 13 mg.
Despite this, if a child nevertheless swallows the contents of a broken thermometer or bites it off, it is necessary to immediately induce vomiting, thereby removing mercury from the body. And if the child not only broke, but bit through the thermometer, it is important to carefully examine the oral cavity and exclude the possibility of glass particles getting into the stomach. And in any case, you should definitely call an ambulance. At the hospital they will rinse and check your general condition.
Is it dangerous to get mercury into the body?
It often happens that a child not only bites through the thermometer, but also swallows mercury from it. Situations like this worry parents a lot. What to do?
Remember, if the baby swallowed a small amount of the substance, it is unlikely to cause harm to health, but you still need to go to the doctor for an examination, since a piece of glass could enter the body with it. Based on this, it can be argued that cases where a child swallows this metal are less dangerous than inhaling its vapors.
What are the symptoms of vapor poisoning?
If a child is poisoned with mercury, bed rest is indicated and immediate medical attention is required.
It is much worse if a child holds mercury balls in his hands for a long time, then the vapors of this substance will affect the body through the respiratory tract. With prolonged contact with mercury vapor, the following signs of poisoning may appear:
- drowsiness;
- unusual behavior (irritability, apathy, lethargy);
- dizziness;
- frequent headaches;
- memory impairment, decreased attentiveness;
- increased fatigue;
- rapid heartbeat, arrhythmia;
- tremor of the limbs;
- uneven difficulty breathing, cough;
- increased sweating;
- frequent urination;
- perverted taste sensations;
- dry mouth with active secretion of saliva;
- increase in body temperature to 39-40 degrees.
First aid
If mercury poisoning occurs, it is important to provide first aid to minimize the negative consequences for the body.
First of all, call an ambulance. Until the doctors arrive, the victim should drink as much water as possible. This will flush the body. It’s good if you have the drug “Polysorb” on hand. This is an enterosorbent that effectively helps with poisoning. It begins to act quickly, literally in a few minutes, has no contraindications, and can be taken at any age. The main thing is to decide on the dosage, which depends on the patient’s weight.
What should you do if the thermometer breaks?
In order not to encounter the above symptoms, it is important to know where to go and what to do if such a problem occurs.
The first thing you can do is contact the Ministry of Emergency Situations or the sanitary service. Depending on the specific case, specialists will either come and do everything necessary to protect you, your family and others from possible poisoning, or they will advise you on how to collect the remains of the thermometer, where to put them and how to clean the room.
If you are confident that you can handle it on your own, you will find detailed instructions helpful:
- You will need tape or adhesive tape, a small syringe or syringe, a couple of sheets of paper, a flashlight, a glass container with water, a solution of soap and soda and a solution of high concentration potassium permanganate.
- Next, you need to prepare the room for further cleaning. Everything unnecessary needs to be removed, and the entrance must be insulated (close the door or curtain tightly, plug the gap between the door and the floor with a rag soaked in a manganese solution).
- It is equally important to properly prepare yourself: to avoid inhaling fumes, wear a wet mask, and to avoid direct contact with the harmful substance, you should wear rubber gloves on your hands and shoe covers or rubber shoes on your feet.
- Without creating a draft, open the windows. Carefully take the fragments of the broken thermometer so that the mercury remaining in it does not spill, and place it in a container with water.
- Using paper, combine the large silver balls into one and also immerse them in a container of water, and the small ones will be easy to collect using tape, which you then send to the rest of the “parts”.
- Mercury is a very specific metal; if the thermometer is damaged, tiny particles can roll into hard-to-reach places, and it is strictly forbidden to leave them there untouched. To make these particles more visible, illuminate them with a flashlight; the metal will give off a characteristic shine. Draw them in with a syringe or syringe and add everything you find to the same jar.
- Now you need to tightly close the container with the collected elements of the broken thermometer and thoroughly wash the floor with previously prepared solutions. If possible, leave the room to ventilate for a day.
- Everything that was used during cleaning, including your clothes, will be properly disposed of (put it in a separate bag and take it along with the can to the address indicated by the Ministry of Emergency Situations).
How long does it take for mercury to evaporate?
When a thermometer in an apartment breaks, it is impossible to determine exactly how much mercury disappears. The evaporation process depends on a large number of factors and can take from several weeks to several years.
Firstly, it depends on the amount of mercury that has managed to leak out of the thermometer. The fact is that the less substance remains on the surface, the faster evaporation will occur.
Secondly, the air temperature in the apartment in which the thermometer was broken affects. If the room is warm, evaporation will occur faster. To prevent air pollution, open your windows as soon as possible.
Thirdly, the surface on which the thermometer was broken is important. If there are no cracks on it, it will be much easier to collect balls of dangerous metal. But if mercury ends up on the carpet or furniture, this will add additional complications. In this case, evaporation will take as long as possible.
What not to do
Cleaning after a thermometer has broken must be done very carefully.
There are several rules about what not to do when a child damages a thermometer:
- It is unacceptable to use a vacuum cleaner to collect mercury, this will contribute to a greater spread of vapors of the harmful substance, and the vacuum cleaner itself will have to be disposed of along with the remains of the thermometer;
- for the same reason, a broom is not suitable for cleaning, as it is easier to spread mercury particles throughout the room than to collect them;
- it is important to let fresh air into the room where the thermometer broke, but you should not create a draft in it to avoid air pollution in other rooms;
- the collected elements of a damaged thermometer must be disposed of only in accordance with the instructions of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, but not thrown into a trash container or flushed down the drain.
Let us remind you once again that it is better to destroy the clothes you wore when cleaning, along with the thermometer. It cannot be washed in a washing machine. But if you want to save any items that ended up next to a broken thermometer, you can ventilate them well in remote areas (for example, at the dacha, when you are not there) for at least 3 months, and then take them to the dry cleaner.
If, after taking all the steps you have taken, you are still concerned, you can ask a laboratory service to measure the level of mercury vapor in the air.
Exceeding the limit concentration
Typically, this medical device contains 2 to 5 g of mercury. If all of it evaporates in a room of standard size, the concentration of vapor of this metal in the room will reach 100 mg per cubic meter. This is three hundred thousand times the maximum permissible concentration of mercury for a residential area.
Of course, these are only theoretical calculations, since ventilation will not allow the metal to reach such a concentration, but it will still be very high. In addition, all the mercury from the thermometer can only evaporate at a very high temperature.
As a result, if no action is taken when a thermometer in an apartment breaks, the concentration of this substance turns out to be 50-100 times higher than normal. This is also quite serious.
If a thermometer breaks in an apartment, the consequence, which is considered one of the most dangerous, is that this metal has the ability to concentrate in the human body. Moreover, symptoms can become apparent after a long time, which makes diagnosis extremely difficult. By then, the incident with the broken thermometer may be forgotten.
