Good article, very scary stuff. Anytime you work with automotive solvents/cleaners or the stuff under your kitchen sink if not used correctly can be deadly.
We use brake cleaner all the time for stuff. Including cleaning the windshield of the LeMons car this weekend since I accidentally oversprayed it with spray paint. Not anymore, back to razor blades I go!
That is certainly a wake up call for thinking about what you are using on a car and making sure you are using the product for the work it was designed for.
Good article Chuck, thanks for posting this. I'm aware of this issue in our shop. I took a quick "walk through" this morning. I buy the non-chlorinated spray which does not cause the phosgene problem.
For those that don't know, this is the gas they used during WWI to gas the troops in the trenches in Europe..... Nasty stuff...
So I end my inspection... To my horror I find one can of the same stuff pictured in the article (identical warning label). Asking around, one of my workers brought it in from home to clean a car part during his lunch hour and forgot to take it home. I've since disposed of the can...
I've used brake cleaner for years & have never given a second thought to the warning label. This is a wake up call for me. Luckily for me I have been using the non-chlorinated stuff.
I wonder why the author of the article did not call 911 & seek immediate help. Could have been he was in a stupor from the gas & couldn't piece it together that he was in very serious trouble.
Just imagine being a worker, smoking a cigarette in an area that just had some tetrachloroethylene sprayed on a brake job, with the gasses passing over the hot ember of the cigarette. The phosgene would get you before the cancer.....
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