Bomb filling at the Nebraska Ordnance plant

[weberoed]

While conducting Environmental Site Assessments at this Plant and the old Kingsbury Ordnance Plant (they loaded medium caliber projectiles, greandes and also the Beamo grenade) I learned something kinda funny. The women would take home small amounts of TNT to use in coloring their hair red or a kinda yellowish blonde. Found it documented in several papers, the managers tried to stop the practice, but as one paper said "what are we going to do fire them all? The amount taken is not a big problem"

 

[kahu1]

Sounds like the tale of the so called 'canarys',women who filled picric shells in WW1, they all went blond!.Picric as a dye is very effective .

 

[HAZORD]

That is a very interesting story. As I first started to read it, I thought it was going to go a different way. Many years ago, it was found that the people that worked in Dynamite factories, primarily women, were becoming addicted to the stimulating effects of the nitroglycerine in the dynamite. Of course, handling dynamite can give the normal person a horrible headache, but even breathing the vapor in a high enough concentration can have the same effect.

The factory workers built up a tolerance to the nitro, and therefore didn't get headaches when they were at work, but when they went home, they would suffer withdrawls and get headaches from the lack of nitro. In the same way that multi-cup coffee drinkers get headaches if they don't get their caffeine, the dynamite workers were getting headaches from not enough nitro in their environment.

 

[US-Subs]

While on an EOD incident one time I suffered from NG intoxication to the point where I passed out four times in two hours, followed by the nausea portion where I puked till the little brown ring came out. Somehow I think I missed the stimulating part.

 

[Falcon]

I have also heard that British soldiers in the WW1 trenches used to chew cordite as the nitroglycerine would cause heart palpitations. This was apparently an easy way to get declared unfit for service and sent home.

 

[weberoed]

When I worked for Atlas powder compant we made NG - you're right some could build up a tolerance, two problems with NG is it can affect the blood and its ability to handle the oxygen CO trade off, plus it will dilate the blood vessel which makes it good for heart attacks, but too fast and you go down.

There was another doc that came from the Badger AAP (propellant manufacturing) about NG and women. The story goes the NG wouold cause their blood vessels to enlarge (true) and it would casue them to be a little too sensitive in the "cookie" region. Makes sense to me.

 

[US-Subs]

Fig newton or chocolate chip?

 

[weberoed]

Fortune cookie = got the shape

 

[HAZORD]

So they got sensitive every time they went into the kitchen?

@US-Subs, when you got the NG overdose, did you get it on your skin, or was it from just breathing it?

 

[SG500]

In the same way that multi-cup coffee drinkers get headaches if they don't get their caffeine,

I know the feeling. For years I used to drink 10 plus coffee's per day and then decided to drop to 1 overnight. I never get headaches but had 2 weeks of headaches following the drop from 10 to 1 a year ago. I'm glad I did and feel better for it. If anyone does it be careful about taking pain killers for the headaches, some of them have loads of caffeine in them!!

Dave.

 

[BMG50]

I had a problem with heart palpitations and went to the doctor, who asked me how much coffee i had, i must admit that i had over 10 cups a day. I cut down on the coffee and changed to de-cafe. Since then i have had no problems and feel much better for it.

 

[weberoed]

Normally NG intoxication comes from contact, breathing NG fumes is more likely to cause pretty bad headaches. There are a lot of studies on NG intoxication or exposure on the web.