[AlexMuir]

A brilliant story, well written.

There have been a few horrific stories of cultural backwards attacking women with acid in the UK press. It's made me far more cautious when handling automotive batteries.

I won't move a car battery ever again without wearing safety goggles.

[praptak]

Acids are dangerous indeed. In case of hydrochloric acid you don't even need to splash yourself to get hurt. The fumes are enough to damage your eyes or respiratory tract - gaseous hydrogen chloride dissolves in the moisture covering eyes and mucous membranes, producing hydrochloric acid.

[pyre]

To be fair, I remember handling HCl in chemistry and the fumes didn't dissolve my eyes, though I could tell that the fumes weren't nice either. It would depend on the concentration of the gas, which would also be a function of the concentration of the HCl that was vaporising.

[localhost]

HCl is not particularly dangerous, as it is fairly easily washed off. Concentrated sulfuric acid, on the other hand is particularly bad. It is very viscous, extremely difficult to wash off as water just heats up the stuff. See: http://fscimage.fishersci.com/msds/22350.htm