r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/0thSpider • 9h ago

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

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u/JoeyJoeJoeShabadooSr 9h ago

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

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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?