When I was working in the oil fields of western Oklahoma, we used to take great care around wells that produced hydrogen sulfide gas. Anytime it was suspected that the well may produce H2S, we were required to carry an H2S monitor which was a little larger than a pack of cigarettes and painted a bright “hazard” yellow. The monitor was pretty sensitive and would fire off a sqeeky warning buzz long before you really started to notice the nasty rotten-egg smell of H2S. Even though it was bothersome and even annoying at time, it was truely better to be safe than sorry. H2S has several nasty properties, one of which is if you breathed a concentrated dose of it (which was entirely possible since its also heavier than air and tends to accumulate in low areas) you could go from smelling stinky eggs to smelling nothing in no time as it will quickly destroy your sense of smell - right before it kills you. One of the more memorable lessons I learned when I “broke out” in the oilfield came from a tool pusher I worked for. He put it this way, “when ya quit smellin’ the rotten eggs, lay down on the ground and keep yer arms to yer sides. It makes it easier fer the coroner to put yer body in the bag.” Yep, we valued the buzzing yellow boxes in our shirt pockets.

Not everyone travels the hightech road when it comes to hazardous gas detection though. These photos were passed to me this week by a friend who’s working in the Far East right now. The caption on the email was “low budget offshore Chinese gas detection equipment”…

In case you think the chicken on the drilling floor might just be someone’s pet or some traditional Chinese talisman for ensuring a bountiful hydrocarbon harvest, I present this technical drawing from a Chinese engineering manual that was included with the photos (I blanked out the name of the company and other identifing labels)…

That’s right, when you’re driving piles in areas of suspected hazardous gas conditions, you (the stick man in the drawing) need to lower your chicken (the stick chicken in the drawing) down into the pile to “cheek the aumosphere in the pile is saft enough”…

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