Pre-text: I’m an electrical engineer who supports induction furnaces. Our furnaces melt anywhere from 1 ton to 100 tons of metal at a time down from scrap metal for foundries. Not your typical tech support.

When I visit these foundries, I often have to review their safety material. Standard kinda stuff that they give out to contractors before permitting they do work. Often times the bigger companies do this to limit liability and the smaller don’t.

I was at a medium sized plant in Wisconsin about to do some support on a holding furnace. Before I am allowed to do work I have to review their safety material and sign a few sheets. Kinda standard stuff at plants approaching this size.

As I am flipping through the book I get to the safety section regarding their melters and something peaks my interest. Normally, they’re pretty repetitive, but this page had one rule that I’ve never seen anywhere else: “No water on the operating deck. All water must be in the operators room. This includes spit.”

What? Spit. Why did it have to specify spit? So I ask the maintenance supervisor.

“Oh well this is something you’ve gotta hear. We had an operator who liked to chew tobacco. Not really an issue as he kept his spit bottle in the operator room. Disgusting, but whatever. He showed up and did his job.

Until one day, he decided to put the spit bottle in the pocket of his shirt as he did his job. At first it wasn’t an issue, until toward the end of the shift when it got more and more full.

You see he opened the furnace to check temperature visually. As he bent over it spilled out into the furnace. BOOM. Metal flew everywhere. He died in seconds. His body was 90% covered in iron.

The kicker was his family sued afterwards. They argued that the no water rule was vague and he didn’t know it applied to spit.”

Face meet desk.

“They got 2 million and the lawyers had us add the phrase to our safety manuals.”

Edit: Since there’s multiple questions. Iron is typically 2200 plus degrees F. Water pours into furnace and vaporizes near instantly after getting in contact with the metal. This causes the water to expand and steam. Metal goes along for a ride. Example: https://youtu.be/78CBUcGtfOs