Chemistry bottle brush disaster! 

"Better than learning from our own mistakes, is learning from someone else's mistakes." Now these are some very wise words

Nice story! Reminds me beginning of my professional career as an engineer. I used to work with different explosives, including primes. That was fun time!

the UH-OH tank in the third illustration was so creative~

Primary rule in organic chemistry labs: NO BUNSEN BURNERS. When I took advanced organic chemistry lab the lab was shared with beginning organic chemistry students using Bunsen burners. I told the professor that I would not work in that lab and would do the experiment at home where I had the necessary equipment.

I had a Sodium and Toluene fire in my sink, smoke billowed and deposited Ash over the whole room. Lucky it was in the sink and I had co2 fire extinguisher at hand 😬

So, currently working in a GMP environment chemistry lab, and I know things work kinda differently at uni. But c'mon. Fumehoods! Probs you can work with the ether on one side of it, and with the bunsenburner on another even. It'll surely stop any blankets of ether gas from forming xD Oh wait, that was from a different time. I remember in highschool I had to pipette from the mouth too (with a harmless liquid thankfully), the older generation of chemists generally have a looser understanding of safety xD

great illustration!!!! and great story as well :)

What if I told you the bottle brushes were paid actors from the fire extinguisher company…