I talked about almost dying in my last post. Well, the first thing I'd say is that it's really not as frightening to myself as you'd think. But let me give you the full story.
I came back to Hong Kong (yeah! so long, stinking Austin) and went to my parents' house in China for a weekend before I start my new job (more on that later). They use these old water heaters that doesn't use electricity, but gas. Yes, those of you in US might not have seen or even heard of it. How it works is that it takes a gas source stored somewhere outside your house, pipe it through to the heater inside the bathroom, a fire is running inside the device and heat your running water so that you can wash your filthy body.
Pretty neat device, except for one thing: the combustion isn't always 100%. So you have maybe 10% of the gas not burnt in the fire, and that's going to accumulate in the bathroom. That's why you need to turn on this little fan that sucks air out of the bathroom, and that is EXACTLY what I didn't do. Being the genius as myself, I think it'll be cold and didn't bother to turn it on.
20 minutes later I was unconcious, and my mum heard a serious of loud periodic crys (of which I have no recollection what-so-ever). I later learn that she rushed to the bathroom, knocked, yelled, asked neighbour to kick the door open, asked security to take me to the hospital.
The security kept slapping me in the face to keep me sort of awake, while they take me to the hospital. A lot of oxygen intaking, an MRI image, and a lot of rest later, I came to and realize what just happened.
Man, my mum must have been freaked to death. God bless her man ...
Strange things to note:
I came back to Hong Kong (yeah! so long, stinking Austin) and went to my parents' house in China for a weekend before I start my new job (more on that later). They use these old water heaters that doesn't use electricity, but gas. Yes, those of you in US might not have seen or even heard of it. How it works is that it takes a gas source stored somewhere outside your house, pipe it through to the heater inside the bathroom, a fire is running inside the device and heat your running water so that you can wash your filthy body.
Pretty neat device, except for one thing: the combustion isn't always 100%. So you have maybe 10% of the gas not burnt in the fire, and that's going to accumulate in the bathroom. That's why you need to turn on this little fan that sucks air out of the bathroom, and that is EXACTLY what I didn't do. Being the genius as myself, I think it'll be cold and didn't bother to turn it on.
20 minutes later I was unconcious, and my mum heard a serious of loud periodic crys (of which I have no recollection what-so-ever). I later learn that she rushed to the bathroom, knocked, yelled, asked neighbour to kick the door open, asked security to take me to the hospital.
The security kept slapping me in the face to keep me sort of awake, while they take me to the hospital. A lot of oxygen intaking, an MRI image, and a lot of rest later, I came to and realize what just happened.
Man, my mum must have been freaked to death. God bless her man ...
Strange things to note:
- I actually though I was a survivor in the Tsunami when I realize they were trying to save me
- After ruling that out, I believed that I was dreaming, that I'd wake up and still be in my nice warm blanket
- That didn't work as I realize that this "Dream" is wayyy too detailed man. I mean, I'm not going to see all these buildings with actual chinese company names on there right?
- MRI cost around $600 RMB (That's chinese dollars, a little less than $100 USD), and the whole thing cost around a little less than $1000 RMB, and the broken bathroom door
- we replaced the water heaters. Still sucking in gas, but the new design automagically suck the unburnt gas out of the house.
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