Why is Dry Ice So Dangerous?

Dry ice is used for everything from freezing biological samples to making delicious ice cream. As long as we are wearing gloves, shouldn't we be safe?

The answer, in short, is no. Dry ice can actually pose several other hazards to our personal safety!

Welcome to the Science of Lab Safety, brought to you by Lab Safety Specialists!

While we might all know that we have to follow certain rules when working in a science laboratory, we might not know “why” these rules matter (other than to avoid getting into trouble). Let’s take a closer look at the exciting, unexpected, and sometimes scary facts behind the Science of Lab Safety.

[Nierez]

I remember burning myself as a child with that thing. So, it's frozen CO2.

The ambulant ice cream vendor had some chunks in his cooler. Now it's was not a truck. More like a cooler with wheels and some bells to call in the kids. I would jump on it to scavange for the best ice cream. One day I got my hand too deep and burned myself with the ice. Never again. Now I know why the container always had this faint mist. To be fair the ice block were covered in newspaper for safety I guess.

[Reverse-generic-engineer]

"Weak people REVENGE.
Strong people FORGIVE.
Intelligent people IGNORE."'The
DIFFERENCE between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." "The only source of knowledge is
EXPERIENCE."'"EDUCATION is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.""Once you stop
LEARNING, you start dying.""Genius is 1% talent and 99% percent hard work... " speak to everyone in the same way, whether he is the garbage man or the president of the university."'Weakness of ATTITUDE becomes weakness of CHARACTER. Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe."

[FILIPINOTUNER]

One of my aunts recently passed because of that stuff. 200 lbs of it in her hatchback car, in non-approved containers.

No one warned her of the hazard. Authorities found her parked in a parking lot, backed on to a spot (how she always parks). By the time they found her, it was far too late.

No doubt she felt dizzy at first. Then just thought she was tired and decided to have a quick nap. It was a hot day, so she kept the windows closed and the AC on.

Her family is currently getting to the bottom of what happened that day. It wasn't part of her job to pick up those dry ice.

[BeachLuvR]

Could dry Ice be too dangerous in large amounts to stop a volcano from destroying homes?