I was born and still reside in Albuquerque, New Mexico (USA), and when I was young, my family lived down the street from a community center. The children went there to participate in various activities such as sports; Arts and crafts; dancing … and we had a lot of fun, especially during the summer months when there was no school.
One day, a bus full of children from the community center, we were taken to the grounds of the Fraternal Order of Police near the Rio Grande for an all-day picnic. The usual thing was at the picnic … hamburgers, hot dogs, softball, horseshoes and ice cream … and that’s where it all started … ice cream!
The ice cream was kept cold with dry ice, and when the picnic was over, three of the kids decided to take some dry ice with us on the bus. (Big mistake!) We all had little bits of dry ice in a box, and we thought it would be cool (pun intended), pretend we were smoking a bit! We would put the little pieces of dry ice in our mouths and watch the steam come out of our mouths and noses! Fun, huh? (For 10-12 year olds, this was not very smart)
The kids will be kids, and it was fun for a while, and then a sharp turn on the bus to the right, and a little horse game from the kids in the back of the bus … and … PANIC! EMERGENCY! I swallowed the piece of dry ice in my mouth and it lodged in my throat! I quickly found myself on the floor in the back of the bus gasping for air! My throat was burning, blistered and swollen and I was having trouble breathing!
I was scared to death as I lay on the ground, and several of the kids were standing next to me and laughing and laughing having fun! I was dying … and they were laughing! I couldn’t understand it! Fortunately, we were close to the community center and the bus driver quickly put me in his car and took me to a nearby hospital. I was given emergency care and discharged … that would be fine! For the next week or two, I was only able to eat warm broth and warm milk. (YUK) Doing a trick like this, it wasn’t my throat that needed attention … it was my brain that needed attention!
A few days later, as I was thinking about the incident, I could not understand why the children were laughing at me while I was on the floor of the bus. They told me that the reason for the laughter was because when the dry ice lodged in my throat, steam came out of my mouth, my nose and my EARS! When I heard this, it made me laugh too! WOW … the kids must have thought he had some kind of magical powers to do something like this! It must have been a lot of fun for everyone!
A few weeks after the incident, I remembered what happened on the bus that horrible day, and with all those smiling faces staring at me, I knew humor would be a big part of my life in the future, but it wouldn’t. Don’t ever go through all that again just to laugh!
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Tip: DO NOT play with dry ice at any age and for any reason! Stay away and let the people who know what they are doing handle it. I learned my lesson the hard way!