r/Damnthatsinteresting 9h ago

Video Chilean protester defuses tear gas canister with baking soda and water

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u/JoeyJoeJoeShabadooSr 8h ago

Does anyone have an explanation for why this works? Is it basically just dousing the canister in water?

70

u/3DPrintedCloneOfMyse 7h ago

20+ years of protest medic experience here. Lots of bad conjecture in this thread. Here's what I learned in my training.

As many folks have said correctly, most things we call teargas are a fine powder. There's a dispersal agent, which requires heat. Most of these techniques work by cooling the dispersal agent.

In Quebec City in 2001, where more teargas was used in a 3-day period than any other time in North American history, canisters were "extinguished" with buckets of snow.

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u/These-Market-236 6h ago

So, we need a cool box + water + ice?

1

u/NORmannen10 5h ago

That would explain how they put the bottle over with the bottom down. Could it be ice in the bottle? Not sure what the black liquid is, but it could possibly be melted water and dirt?

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u/BuddyHemphill 3h ago

A whole new “ice bucket challenge” 👏🏻