[masraum]

Originally Posted by DonDavis

Installing an MRI, we had the magnet ramped and I was getting set up to perform SuperCon Shimming. That process makes the magnetic field Homogeneous which essentially means "make the field more smooth" by manipulating the several coil currents.

I was on top and began inserting the shim lead down into the vessel. I did not realize the vessel pressure had gone just a smidge below atmosphere and it pulled room temp air into the mix.

Heard an ever-so-slight air woosh and then the burst disk popped. Helium does not like being liquid and tries to be gas whenever it can. That exchange rate is roughly 800-1 meaning 1 liter of liquid becomes 800 liters of gas within seconds. I was sitting on about 2,000 liters of liquid.

**side note*** As soon as a magnet is physically put in place, we install the venting which vents to the outside. It's 12" diameter stainless steel the entire path.

The magnet quenched. "Oh s***" and the system began rumbling as the helium exited to outside. I scrambled down and met responders at the door stopping them from rushing in.

That one really sucked, but the convo with management was really great. A crucial step was not performed the day prior. Not my fault.

I still felt crappy, tho.

If that had been billable, it would have topped $100k without blinking.

Yikes! But thank goodness for small miracles!

In a couple of the situations that I was party to, I didn't create the failure. The failure was a pre-existing bad/wrong situation that was waiting for a trigger. I just happened to be the trigger. So I didn't cause a problem, I just exposed a pre-existing problem.

In the way back days of networking, you'd have a circuit to connect 2 locations, but to save cost, rather than have 2 circuits, you'd have 1 circuit and the ability to dial a phone line and use that dial up in case the main circuit went down. I know of one instance where a guy was fired because he'd made a mistake configuring the dial up circuit which caused an enormous telephone bill, I think in the thousands or possibly even 5 digits. I have actually seen a phone bill that on printer paper was probably 3-4" thick because of that same sort of issue.