It was now around this time that Sam came close to dying.  While attempting to repeat one of Smirnov’s experiments a serious explosion occurred inside the glove box Sam was working in.  This explosion entirely blew out the back window hurling its pieces (above) a good 40 feet.  It flexed the front window up against Sam’s face and pushed his hands immediately out forcing him back several feet.  A roll of paper towels inside caught on fire and Sam fortunately had enough composure to put that out with a fire extinguisher as the box had a cooling well in it already filled with about 4-5 gallons of heptane (i.e. gasoline).  Had the front window broke Sam would have been decapitated.  The University of Asscrack never supplied Sam with any official paperwork to fill out although he did supply them with a lengthy handwritten testimony of the accident.  They never disclosed the actual cause of the accident to him or provided any photographs and according to the memo affixed (below) with his testimony (below) the explosion (according to University of Asscrack offals, yes no misspelling) was minor.  Instead they hushed it up quickly.  Sam told me that he thinks there is a possibility it could have been arranged to happen (i.e. kill Sam) as he later found an unusual wire (above) that may have come from an electric motor used inside the box.  Despite these boxes having supposedly been under an inert atmosphere he knew they contained enough moisture to cause metal halides (being withdrawn via syringe from a septum sealed bottle mind you) to fume so profusely as to obscure the view through the box itself.  So the oxygen level may have even been quite high as well.  He also knew that the stirring motor for the cooling bath occasionally had an electrical glow to it but was told by others of the herd that it was an indication that no oxygen or moisture were present.  In his usual 20/20 hindsight Sam said use of electric devices in such a piece of equipment (that were not explosion proof) would have been an obvious safety violation.  Moreover, Sam told me that these boxes routinely contained mL (e.g. + 10 mL) quantities of isobutene and sometimes methyl chloride that would eject from immersion cooling coils used for their collection inside the box.  On rereading his account of the accident Sam mentioned to me that the box may have been precharged with isobutene or methyl chloride as the valves for the latter gas we in the open position prior to experimentation, which was unusual.  These materials due to their volatility and flammability would be an ideal explosive under the right conditions.  Regardless of the cause, planned or not it was a turning point for Sam.