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kamalktk Great Old One Joined: 05 Feb 2011 Total posts: 705 Gender: Unknown |
 Posted: 18-05-2012 00:11 Post subject: Step 1: put rocks in pocket. Step 2: rocks catch fire! |
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2145713/Woman-suffers-severe-burns-rocks-collected-beach-visit-IGNITE-pocket.html
Woman suffers severe burns after rocks collected during beach visit IGNITE in her pocket
A woman has had to undergo surgery on her leg after rocks collected by her children, during a day trip to a local beach, may have spontaneously combusted in her pocket.
The 43-year-old woman, who remains unnamed, had enjoyed a day with her family at Trestles Beach, San Diego. During the visit, her children had collected seven unusual-looking rocks - orange and green in colour - and the woman had put them in the right pocket of her cargo shorts to carry home.
Captain Marc Stone, a spokesman for Orange County Fire Authority, explained that the woman began to feel intense heat emanating from her pocket as she was standing in the kitchen of her San Clemente home.
Orange and green rocks: A close-up of the Trestles Beach rocks show smooth stones of grey and green with orange flecks
Orange and green rocks: A close-up of the Trestles Beach rocks show smooth stones of grey and green with orange flecks
Her clothing and skin began to burn as the heat intensified, and she also suffered second-degree burns to her hand as she tried to remove the rocks from her pocket.
Her husband also suffered second-degree burns to his hand as he tried to help her. Eventually she managed to remove the shorts but the rocks burnt through the fabric and continued to smoulder on the kitchen's wooden floor - filling the home with smoke.
Captain Stone said authorities were conducting tests on the collected rocks, but results were not expected for a couple of weeks.
Heat my shorts: The cargo shorts belonging to the 43-year-old woman who suffered third-degree burns. Clear scorch marks can be seen on the fabric
He said: 'There is phosphorous that naturally occurs on the sand at the beach, but no one has ever heard of pants catching fire.'
Phosphorus in rocks, or phosphorite, is usually deposited by sediment - dissolved phosphorus from continental weathering that is brought to the oceans by rivers and streams.
Trestles Beach, where the family were enjoying their day out, is at the mouth of the San Mateo Creek - the beach gets its name from a wooden bridge that spanned the creek.
It's not hard to imagine that, over millions of years, dissolved phosphorus has been deposited in the rocks in the Trestles Beach area.
It has been suggested that, if the rocks did contain phosphorite, they could have been subjected to friction in the woman's pocket as she walked - leading to a chemical chain reaction that ignited them.
Phosphorus ignites when it is exposed to oxygen, which is why the substance must be kept in oil in laboratories.
Captain Stone said he spoke to the paramedic who treated the woman's injuries before taking her and her husband to Western Medical Center in Santa Ana.
He added: 'He's been on numerous calls for 27 years. He's never seen anything like it.'
Staff at the Western Medical Center confirmed that a woman suffering second- and third-degree burns to her right thigh was admitted on Saturday, and that she is undergoing treatment.
She and her husband were also treated for second-degree burns to their hands. |
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| EnolaGaia Joined: 19 Jul 2004 Total posts: 1305 Location: USA Gender: Male |
| Posted: 18-05-2012 00:23 Post subject: |
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| First thing I'd want to know is what other items may have been in her cargo pockets along with the 'stones' ... |
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| EnolaGaia Joined: 19 Jul 2004 Total posts: 1305 Location: USA Gender: Male |
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| waitew Great Old One Joined: 15 Apr 2004 Total posts: 301 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 18-05-2012 00:38 Post subject: |
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My working theory is that the rocks are Flint like and when she moved they would rub against each other and sometimes produce a small spark. Those sparks were too small to ignite the woman's shorts by themselves. Then she pasted gas,the rocks sparked & BOOM! That ignited the woman's shorts which caused the burns. If the rocks themselves were responsible for the burns (7 of them fit in a single pocket) then the burns wouldn't cover such an extensive area. I predict it will be found that naturally occurring phosphorus is incidental and had nothing to do with the fire.
This naturally occurring phosphorus also reminds me of a couple other Fortean stories from Southern California. Does anyone remember the 'burning'/smoking ground (many hundreds of degrees F)? I remember a few years back there was a mountainside that just suddenly started smoking & steaming for no apparent reason (it was in the Dick Smith Wilderness if memory serves). It was in the news & then the story just went away. The same thing happened near Hope Ranch up the coast. Then the story just went away. Never did get an answer. |
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| EnolaGaia Joined: 19 Jul 2004 Total posts: 1305 Location: USA Gender: Male |
| Posted: 18-05-2012 03:47 Post subject: |
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Some of the early stories gave the impression the woman had put the rocks into the pocket of her cargo shorts at the beach (i.e., she may have been carrying them for some time before they ignited back at her home).
A more recent story posted by the Associated Press gives a different account:
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... The children of the 43-year-old woman who was injured collected the seven rocks Saturday from San Onofre State Beach near the border of Orange and San Diego counties, a popular surfing beach nicknamed Trestles for its location near a railroad bridge.
The children took the rocks home. Hours later, the woman, whose name was not released, scooped them up from the floor of her San Clemente home and put them in the pocket of her cargo shorts, where they either caught fire or became hot enough to set fire to her clothing, Stone said. ...
SOURCE: http://www.newser.com/article/d9uqo7ig1/official-beach-rocks-that-burned-california-woman-may-have-been-coated-with-phosphorous.html
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In a related vein, the _San Clemente Times_ version of the story states the woman's children had been playing with the rocks at their home before the woman collected the rocks and put them into her pocket.
(SOURCE: http://www.sanclementetimes.com/view/full_story/18639241/article-Third-Degree-Burns-Caused-by-Rocks-at-Trestles-State-Beach?instance=eye_on_sc)
My point here is that there seems to have been an opportunity for the stones to have been contaminated with something at the home before they went into her pocket. |
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| waitew Great Old One Joined: 15 Apr 2004 Total posts: 301 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 18-05-2012 04:05 Post subject: |
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| I'm going to stick with my Fart Theory in which the only role the rocks played were as a source for the spark that ignited the gas the woman herself passed. Getting her to admit that the incident was immediately preceeded by the flatulence may prove difficult. |
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| jimv1 Great Old One Joined: 10 Aug 2005 Total posts: 2734 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 18-05-2012 11:35 Post subject: |
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When I was at school, we were doing hymn practice one monday morning when the first three rows started coughing and retching. Unfortunately, our weak lamentations were brought to a halt when a boy nearest the air vents passed out.
It turned out that another kid had found a clear plastic package containing something weird on the beach over the weekend and had taken it to the biology teacher for identification. Once opened, the substance pretty quickly revealed itself to be phosphorus, burning the teacher's hands and fuming into the aircon.
I don't remember what hymn we were singing at the time - which is a shame as it could have made a good ironic end to the story. |
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| Pietro_Mercurios Heuristically Challenged
Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 18-05-2012 11:58 Post subject: |
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| From the description, sounds more like dumped, WWI, or WWII, ordnance, than naturally occurring phosphorus. There were thousands of tons of it dumped in the sea, over the years. The casings may have rotted away and left the waterlogged contents, to wash up on the beach, ready to dry out. |
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| Mythopoeika Boring petty conservative
Joined: 18 Sep 2001 Total posts: 9109 Location: Not far from Bedford Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 18-05-2012 19:22 Post subject: |
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| Pietro_Mercurios wrote: | | From the description, sounds more like dumped, WWI, or WWII, ordnance, than naturally occurring phosphorus. There were thousands of tons of it dumped in the sea, over the years. The casings may have rotted away and left the waterlogged contents, to wash up on the beach, ready to dry out. |
Yes, that was my first thought too. |
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| Spudrick68 Great Old One Joined: 08 Jun 2008 Total posts: 1111 Location: sunny Morecambe Age: 45 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 18-05-2012 20:18 Post subject: |
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Captain Stone.  |
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| EnolaGaia Joined: 19 Jul 2004 Total posts: 1305 Location: USA Gender: Male |
| Posted: 02-06-2012 15:07 Post subject: |
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The latest update simply confirms elevated phosphorus levels. The last paragraph makes it clear the rocks kept on smoking for a substantial length of time.
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SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. (AP) — Additional testing has confirmed beach rocks that spontaneously combusted in a Southern California woman's pocket contained elevated levels of phosphorus, an official said Friday.
The source of the substance is still unclear, but an expert says it probably was manmade.
Results from an independent lab matched those obtained by the Orange County Public Health Care Agency, which examined the rocks immediately after the May 12 incident, agency spokeswoman Deanne Thompson said.
Lyn Hiner, 43, suffered second- and third-degree burns on her right leg from her thigh to her knee and on her right arm when the rocks set her shorts on fire several hours after her children collected them on a San Clemente beach. Hiner couldn't extinguish the flames, and her husband suffered second-degree burns when he tried to help her.
The phosphorus on the smooth, greenish-orange rocks is likely manmade, said Kenneth Shea, an organic chemistry professor at the University of California, Irvine.
Phosphorus is found in oxidized form in rocks, but in its pure elemental form can burn when exposed to air. Phosphorous compounds are used in everything from flares to munitions to fertilizer.
"You can't go digging on the beach and find it," Shea said. "It's manmade, and it's pretty common."
Trestles, the beach where the family gathered the rocks, is near the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station and the Camp Pendleton Marine base.
San Clemente Island, 60 miles off the coast of Trestles Beach, is owned and operated by various naval commands. The island has at least a dozen ranges there.
Capt. Barry Edwards, a Camp Pendleton spokesman, said when the incident occurred that there was no evidence military training aids were involved.
He said Friday he had no new information.
The rocks kept burning after they fell out of Hiner's pocket, scorching the couple's wood floor and filling the house with smoke. They were still smoking when paramedics brought them to Western Medical Center in Santa Ana to show the doctors there, The Orange County Register reported.
SOURCE: http://news.yahoo.com/lab-burning-rocks-had-elevated-phosphate-levels-202904041.html
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| Mahajahck Great Old One Joined: 29 Jul 2009 Total posts: 16777214 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 04-07-2013 23:57 Post subject: The Radioactive and Explosive Stones That Come From Sea |
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 IN http://brazilweirdnews.blogspot.com.br/2013/07/the-radioactive-and-explosive-stones.html
URUGUAI. At Piriapolis city, in Punta Negra's beach, the retired military, fisherman in his spare time, 78 years - Juan Carlos Bézon, was walking on the seaside when he noticed a small stone, just over 3 inches wide. He noted that it had a strong color in a fluorescent green hue, flecked with dark spots, brownish.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hR3Q0I1yK44/UdN4KxBvEEI/AAAAAAAAJik/c7hPpFaU0rg/s400/kriptonita4.jpg
Juan Carlos Bézon, 78 years (in 2013) in exclusive interview for the weekly La Prensa.
He picked up the object. It had a rough texture - and placed it in his pants pocket. In about five minutes, the man began to feel a warming sensation in the thigh.
It was the stone that - apparently - started a spontaneous reaction, radiating heat. Immediately Bézon began to undress and, luckily, as was wearing two pairs of pants, apart from underwear, escaped a more serious injury in the leg.
... Indeed, is not the first time that this kind of strange incident occurs. ... In 2012, an episode in California-USA, made ??international headlines (see below the Related Link).
MORE... IN http://brazilweirdnews.blogspot.com.br/2013/07/the-radioactive-and-explosive-stones.html
RELATED LINK
Woman suffers severe burns after rocks
collected during beach visit IGNITE in her pocket
DAILY MAIL, 17/05/2012
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2145713/Woman-suffers-severe-burns-rocks-collected-beach-visit-IGNITE-pocket.html |
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| Kondoru Unfeathered Biped Joined: 05 Dec 2003 Total posts: 5788 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 02-08-2013 19:50 Post subject: |
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Phosphorus.
Used in flares. |
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| EnolaGaia Joined: 19 Jul 2004 Total posts: 1305 Location: USA Gender: Male |
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| Pietro_Mercurios Heuristically Challenged
Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 02-08-2013 20:09 Post subject: |
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Threads merged.
P_M  |
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