How to dispose of Bear Spray - THE WRONG WAY!

[Nosmo]

I have often said, "Hey, I'm not as dumb as I look".  Saturday afternoon I proved that statement wrong.

I had a can of Counter Assault bear spray that was about 20 years old, and I figured it was probably no good anymore.  I have a couple others that I have fed into the supply since then, so I thought I'd just use it for practice and shoot it off in the back yard.  My backyard is about twenty acres of woodlands with the closest other house about 200 feet away, and they weren't home.

So…I shot it off in short bursts, until it was empty.  It comes out in an orange fog, not a stream like human-type pepper spray.  I couldn’t smell it at all, so I figured it had gone bad in the can.  Good to know.  (But oooohhhhh so wrong!!)

I went back down in the basement to work on the cleanup project and a couple of minutes later my throat was getting tingly and I started to cough.  Suddenly I was having real trouble breathing.  The stuff was coming in through the foundation vents!  I went outside and took a good breath, and almost went down.  This stuff was not in any way diminished by 20 years in the can.

I remembered the bedroom window was open, and my cats upstairs in the house.  I ran up and shut the window.  I could smell it in the house a little.  I grabbed the cats and stuffed them into their transport crates and got in the truck and drove about a mile away to the vacant lot across from the fire station (in case I got worse and couldn’t breathe.)  We sat there for about a half hour until the cats got fidgety and I went back home.  I could still smell the bear spray a little but it had mostly dispersed by then.

BUT….my throat still burned and my lungs hurt a little all day Sunday and Monday.  It wasn't until Tuesday afternoon that I started feeling normal again.  It never did make my eyes burn, which I guess is OK considering.

Lesson learned:  If you have to get rid of old bear spray, obey your local laws and regulations regarding that, and do it safely.  If you have to use it for defense, shoot it and run away before YOU get overcome.

[AZ-ZG]

Did not know there was such a thing as bear spray. 

More effective than pepper against a human, due to the fog effect?   

[Nosmo]

It is very powerful, more so than the regular pepper sprays, I believe.  Not recommended for use against humans.  The can label says it may cause permanent damage, and I suppose you might find yourself the target of a lawsuit for using an "unapproved for humans" chemical on a human.  You know how that goes.  But I guess if you gotta do what you gotta do.

Don't know if that makes it any better. As I found out, though, the fogging effect makes a much larger contamination zone, rather than the thinner line spray of pepper spray, where you can sort of aim it at a person's face.  If you're in a close fight you may end up disabling yourself, too, as I found out.


Here's their info:

http://counterassault.com/

[MizzouMike]

Ha Ha   

[MAN OF BLUES]

this past week I just planted all the peppers I have had growing indoors in prep for the season, all are looking great, and I went full bore this year, surpasing my last year's hottest the but jalokia ghost peppers.. this year, along with those... we have an abundance 10 plants, of the amazing Carolina Reaper...
we have almost 100 plants with 10 species total, in our container garden, and the mildest is the habanero....
bring on the pepper spray boys... I'm figuring the Reapers are gonna produce a food source equal to the scoville of that spray, and if I dry and cold perc the pods in grain alcohol, I should be able to make an extract over 5,000,000 scoville.... mmmmmmmmmmmm

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolina_Reaper

[tweeter55]

I'm figuring the Reapers are gonna produce a food source equal to the scoville of that spray, and if I dry and cold perc the pods in grain alcohol, I should be able to make an extract over 5,000,000 scoville.... mmmmmmmmmmmm

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolina_Reaper

[AlbertaDoug]

Not try to high jack the tread.

this past week I just planted all the peppers I have had growing indoors in prep for the season, all are looking great, and I went full bore this year, surpasing my last year's hottest the but jalokia ghost peppers.. this year, along with those... we have an abundance 10 plants, of the amazing Carolina Reaper...
we have almost 100 plants with 10 species total, in our container garden, and the mildest is the habanero....
bring on the pepper spray boys... I'm figuring the Reapers are gonna produce a food source equal to the scoville of that spray, and if I dry and cold perc the pods in grain alcohol, I should be able to make an extract over 5,000,000 scoville.... mmmmmmmmmmmm

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolina_Reaper

Rich what do you eat those peppers with?  I guess it doesn't  matter you wouldn't be able to taste it with all the flesh burned off your tongue.

[B.D.F.]

OK, I cannot stand it anymore:

A couple is entering a National Park when a park Ranger stops them to have a chat and give them a couple of things. Seems there is a lot of bear activity in the area and there have been some incidents between bears and people. So the ranger gives both people bells to wear around their necks so as to make plenty of noise and NOT sneak up on any bears by mistake. He also gives them the most powerful bear spray available in the unfortunate event they do happen to come in close contact with a bear.

He explains to them there are two species of bear: black bears and brown bears. Black bears are not too much of a problem usually but brown bears are larger and can be quite aggressive. The ranger goes on to say that the way to tell if bears, and which kind, are in the area is to look for bear sign or 'scat'. It is easy to tell the bear species apart by the scat- black bears produce very small, pebbly scat in medium size piles. Brown bear scat has much larger pieces, is in a much larger pile and often contains bells and smells like bear spray.

 

Brian

[maxtog]

Brown bear scat has much larger pieces, is in a much larger pile and often contains bells and smells like bear spray.

[MAN OF BLUES]

Not try to high jack the tread.

Rich what do you eat those peppers with?  I guess it doesn't  matter you wouldn't be able to taste it with all the flesh burned off your tongue.

we dry and grind them as needed for everything, but we eat a lot of them fresh also...
sprinkle different grinding in stuff like dips and on pizza... over the top for most, but even my wife is eating the hottest stuff now...

for dip


this was 2 dried reaper pods in some dill sourcream dip....they sent me sample dried pods with my seed order... mmmmmmm wow...



but the fresh ghost peppers were scrumtious.... and good endorfan rush...whew


some of last years crop.. nice But Jolokia Ghost variety, had to variations, smooth, and bumpy ones.. both close to 1 million scoville..


ghost and fatali mixes, for a small pizza...mmmmm


one of the multiple harvests of the "mild" habenero...


early last season, I doubled my plats and added hotter ones this year


little batch of biotchingly hot thai babies...


into the processor for home made Shrihrachi..

[gPink]

Rich, why are you wearing gloves if your putting the damn things in your mouth? 

[Conrad]

Rich, why are you wearing gloves if your putting the damn things in your mouth? 

I have to agree. Anything that needs to be handled with gloves should never be put in your mouth.     

[VirginiaJim]

  Oh so much fun could be had with that, C..  But it's early yet and the kettle is on the boil.

[B.D.F.]

The gloves are just to soak up any juices that happen to leak while the peppers are being picked and handled. When he is done, he eats the gloves too and then rubs his fingers in his eyes. :-)

Brian

Rich, why are you wearing gloves if your putting the damn things in your mouth? 

[Conrad]

Oh so much fun could be had with that, C..  But it's early yet and the kettle is on the boil.

And we're so easily drawn away...

Hey, what's that shiny thing in the corner?

[Rhino]

My bear spray is made by Smith & Wesson and uses individual .500 inch "injectors". Also not recommended for use on humans unless the humans in question are "nuisance" humans.

[MAN OF BLUES]

And we're so easily drawn away...

Hey, what's that shiny thing in the corner?

shiney squirrel.....

the gloves are only there to protect my delicate hands.... and to prevent transfer to "other" sensitive body areas in the event a tinkle is required after the beer has been consumed....
funny tho, the gloves are really good ones, and those ghost peppers when you cut a buch up, have juices that actually permeate the gloves....

[Nosmo]

So....I can honestly say I know how they felt:

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/9-people-treated-after-bear-spray-discharged-at-SeaTac-hotel-321064781.html

Somebuddy's gettin' sued.

[Conniesaki]

...

Lesson learned:  If you have to get rid of old bear spray, obey your local laws and regulations regarding that, and do it safely.  If you have to use it for defense, shoot it and run away before YOU get overcome.

Some recommend that during a bear attack you should actually not run away.

So, your throat and lungs will burn like crazy and you won't be able to breathe. And as soon as the bear's done coughing you may also get mauled.

 

[VirginiaJim]

Why do I get this mental picture of a bear standing up and leaning against a tree with arm/paw up in the air signaling to wait just a minute while he coughs his  lungs out and then he'll get back to chasing you and then has a nice lunch with you as the main course..