Firebreathing - A Warning!

ok, so i realise most of you guys don't actually need to be warned about the dangers of Fire Breathing, but i thought i'd share my story anyway.
A few nights ago, some guy saw me twirling out the front of my house, and asked my if i could bring my stuff up to his place and twirl for the people at his house-party. It was all going well, when i decided i'd do some Fire Breathing for these lovely folk. Now, I'd researched Fire Breathing, and practiced quite often with water, and had done it successfully a few times before. This time however 'something' went wrong, and i ended up swallowing quite a bit of kerosene, and managed to inhale some into my lungs too. So i've spent the last three days in the emergency ward at the Royal Melbourne Hostpital, having chest x-rays and tubes stuck down my throat, unable to breathe properly, and being pumped full of pain-killers and anibiotics to fight the infection in my lungs.. not very pleasant at all.
Anyway, i just thought this might help prevent someone else being hurt, hearing first hand that it really is quite dangerous!
stay safe!

Sorry dude... so what are you doing with your sticks???

Something similar happened to Dangerboy I think.

well, i wonder how many times this will happen b4 people heed my advice...

also... so sorry to hear it, my prayers are with you tonight

Arashi: I've read your "advice" for Fire Breathing. Personally your methods are just as dangerous as any other. Your method is risking the same lung injuries, and as for the stomach problems......your just trading that risk, for a higher chance of severly burning your face and mouth. You even mentioned that after two or three plumes, your mouth burns to bad to do another.

Its all dangerous. The difference between a successful plume, and in the hospital, is a split second. I think that this thread, is just a reminder that the dangers are very real.

falloutboy: I hope you feel better soon.

Yup, same thing happened to Dangerboy a while back, and another one of our friends. Except he was in hospital for 3 months. I don't think he's played with fire much since, and the accident happened a long time ago.

As much as fire-breathing looks good and is a really effective crowd winner. I think the risks far out weigh the pros for me, so I will just stick to spinning fire, and leave the breathing bit to those guys who don't mind risking it, and know how to do it professionally.

That’s my pennys worth for today...

wow sorry to hear that. i thought you guys would've used a +40 proof alcohol to fire breath.. i didn't know you used kerosene.. I hope you feel better falloutboy! ^.~

psssst Fallout! I save ya from another told-ya-so, suffice to say that the next time someone gives you a hella badass cocktail, you can say that you've skulled worse! mend those lungs buddy!

well i've written something twice now and accidentally erased it both times...F&^ing buttons!
anyway, i'm keeping it short this time.
i really urge everyone to go back and read my previous talks on this topic. i feel like it is the one place where people at HOP are severely misinformed. but for here let me say that if fallout was using rum, he would have swallowed, found the girls at the party more attractive , and gone home. no hospital.
now, i don't pretend to know everything, and i welcome anyone to tell me if i don't know something. i'm doing this out of concern. people lives are at stake!!! this is my job, as far as i can see for longer than anyone else here at HOP, so please at least open your minds for a minute and listen!! i have taught a lot of people to blow, and NEVER NEVER has any one of my students had an accident. fire blowing can be QUITE quite safe if done correctly. i said it was dangerous earlier only because so many do it that have no idea what they are doing.
severe? now, i burned my face blowing as a beginner, and the burn was far from severe. (thanks to the water safety boy!) i just couldn't kiss my girlfriend for a while. that's the worst that can happen if using rum, but with kero and paraffin, too. with the heavy fuels, an accident and you go to the hospital! or die!!!
most importantly, if we are teaching beginners to use heavy fuel, and we all know that beginners swallow, (no pun intended), then why are we doing this, i mean, they aren't even doing any tricks, like pullbacks or partner transfers, et. al., so why do they even need to consider using anything but rum? why?? WHY??? fallout could be dead right now, and all because people can't put down their own opinions and listen. now, i can do all of those tricks with rum, and so it makes even less sense to me. it seems outrageous.
again, i don't want to sound superior at all. i know i'm a drug fried freak. but somebody at least give me a plausible refutation.
and if there are dangers involved in inhaling fumes from rum, as there are with heavies, then i don't know about them, and i'm ready to listen. otherwise, there really is no tradeoff of danger. there is just dumb, and way less dumb.
i love you all, and i don't want to see any more people in the hospital. hopefully this can become a constructive discussion, and we can all come to an enlightened point about this.

wow that wasn't short at all!!

My good vibes to falloutboy. A while ago there was a thread on Fire Breathing with cooking oils, what is the status quo with this is it good/ bad work / not work and how dangerous? I have bretahed fire with Rum and kero, (not together) and do prefere kero flame, and taste but am obviously more for safety and am not a big fan of carcinogens.

Unforunatly other then the get well soon commemts, we are not discussing anything that hasn't been discussed before over and over agian. You can get chemical pnamonia in your lungs just as easily with rum, as with "oils". The major difference between the two types of fuels, is that with rum and white gas you are ingniteing the vapors. this can lead to all sorts of messes. Say, spilling it down the front of your shirt, blowing a plum and having the flame jump from the fumes in the plume, to the fumes on the front of your shirt by way of your chin because you dribbled just alittle bit.

With "oils" you are igniteing the fuel by turning it into a vapor as it leaves your mouth. I'm not saying that the above couldn't happen with "oils" but I am saying it is alot harder. Both kero and lamp oil need a wick, or to be atomized to burn. So for the above to take place you would need facal hair (a wick) to get the fire to your shirt. Even then you would have to sit there with you face on fire, a while, to get the shirt to ignite.

Please don't think I am taking a negative tone, but I am an advocate of using lamp oil. Accedents are going to happen, and it is very sad and upsetting when they do. IMHO with a memorized methodology, that once you start the proccess dosn't stop until you are done (if for any reason you have to stop the fuel is spit out of your mouth) you can reduce the risks invalved. But really, this is alot like beating a dead horse, I mean a realy dead horse.

Everyone who's been here more than a few months has read Pele's article on Fire Breathing: Fire Breathing Basics by Pele
If you haven't maybe you should.

arashi, you've been shut down before for being an arrogant wish-you-knew-it-all. You might want to stay seated. Your warnings are moot as your teachings are dangerous. If you were a better teacher, there wouldn't be any need to worry about the students swallowing any fuel. Keep that in mind.

Maelstrom, thanks for recognizing this as well.

now, see, me and maelstrom here were having a good discussion, and no name calling was occuring, and i was learning, and i think he was, too, and you had to come on in and get all uppity. oh, well, but i'm not going to throw it back at you. i'm not going there. now if it seems like i'm an arrogant wish i knew it all, then maybe you have a problem with someone challenging your ideas. or should i say your girlfriend's? i'm just trying to open discussion here, not shut anything or anyone down. least of all say offensive stuff to anyone. but i guess i'll go talk on a board where people actually WANT to talk and challenge themselves in a positive way. yeah, i did feel "shut down," and i think that sucks. like some kind of power trip. i think i made it perfecty clear that i'm coming from humility and just want to talk, but seems some are more interested in something else. well, the hint is taken. i just hope that you try to open yourselves more to other people out there that might have other opinions. i was learning a lot, and i think that the people i was talking to were, too... at least about how other people feel and think. and i know others have my opinions too, but were they treated the same way? man, just relax. nothing is so important that you need to be offensive. that's what pulls communities apart. discussion keeps them together.

Arashi - I have heard comments similar to yours from a number of different people. Some of these have since been severely hurt and some of them haven't.

Yes, you are right that swallowing rum is better for you than swallowing other fuels...

But, that's not the biggest danger, this danger is from the fuel going into your lungs! Either very small amounts as happens when you firebreathe 'correctly', or by a small amount actually getting in at once.

The lungs are fibrous like a sponge and can get severely damaged very easily by a tiny amount of chemical, whether it is kero, rum, or even coca-cola...

The more often you firebreath, the more likely this will happen.

Using the argument that "it's never happened to me so my method must be safe" is an easy way to think, but extremely dangerous way to forget about the danger of what you are doing.

I wish to empahasise what many people already have in this thread.

No matter what your technique or fuel...

Fire Breathing IS DANGEROUS.

Everytime you firebreath you should be making a conscious decision between the rewards and the risk of disability or death. It's your decision.

But don't let anyone, even your own mind, let you think it is as safe as firedancing. I don't know of any deaths resulting from firedancing (there may be some). But I know of half a dozen deaths from Fire Breathing, and dozens of serious injuries.

Charles the Energizer Safety Bunny

okay, so i've read the msds sheet on paraffin. the question is, are they saying that the vapour coming off the fuel is dangerous? i've thought that they are (saying that), so it SEEMS that the main danger is inolved when you have the paraffin in your mouth, and you take a breath, and the vapour enters your lungs. now i never even thought about inhaling the aspirated fuel. that seems preety dangerous, of course! so is the same vapour action danger involved in the alcohol? that seems like more of a brain issue, like huffing gas. that causes brain damage, not lung damage. if that's the case, then what is the danger in rum? now this is the point that i've been trying to get to! and if this has been discussed b4 i'm totally sorry. i can barely use this computer, and just consider me a big nunderhead. and thanks for humouring me

I told people that Charles had turned into a rabbit a while back but no one believed me....

You are correct in that my name calling was a bad idea. However, I have a hard time believing that you were learning something as you're still spouting the same incorrect statements that you did when you started on this board. If you do learn then that's great, but I have a feeling not. Not because I'm a pessimist, but because I'm watching the pattern.

And don't bother throwing the g/f card in. I don't always agree with her. But on safety I happen to. Her research and article have been good enough to be hosted on a site where many people have been able to review it. If there were problems with it these would have been recognized by now. Your posts have been found faulting yet you continue to repeat them. That's a strong weight and strong points.

okay first of all thank you for calming down.
second, i feel like any time i start getting down to it, the real points that i'm trying to make, the subject gets dropped, and i can't get my point across. so it may seem like i'm beating a dead horse, but really i'm still just trying to get down to some points. because mainly, i'm just trying to do one thing. on the faq article, and on every single thread that i read (there where 206, so i may have missed one or two) the possibility of using 120 prrof rum is totally shot down by pele and others that have been tauught by her as far as i an tell. but there are a lot of people that are concerned about the toxins as well they should be. i mean fallout could be dead. do you realize that? really realize it? now, it's his own responsibility, and noone is to blame. but i think that it's totally wrong that a perfectly viable option that he has available to him has been totally excluded from his list of possibilities. now i'm really smart and i'm sitting here telling you that there are even holes in your opinions, holes that i'm trying to adress for the betterment of everybody. a lot of people use 120 rum. heck, i even still use lamp oil myself! but i think that it's wrong to keep the OPTION unavailable to people who are concerned about toxicity. especially for beginners, who could most benefit from alcohol as the fuel. and let me reiterate that i have taught lots of people accident free.
so my main point is that you should be trying to fulfill your role as an information rich site, but one of the main fuels that hundreds of people use because they don't want to die of poisoning doesn't even get validity for you guys, even when people come to hop and say, wow, that shit is too toixic, what can i do? or wow, you guys still put kero in you mouth? every thread i saw ended with pele shooting them down. and it's cool, i can see how she is trying to take care of everybody. she thinks alcohol is really bad. i'm just trying to open her mind a little. she's not as concerned with the toxins. well, a lot of people really are. and i know that if someine tried talking to me, rather than just shooting down my discussion, that we could get somewhere. again, i'm not even saying that i don't ever use lamp oil. but most of the people coming to this site to learn about Fire Breathing are beginners. and i feel they should at least have all the information out there. especially since a lot of people think that all beginners should use alcohol until they get used to the whole Fire Breathing thing. that's all i'm trying to say. and i know that if we get down to it, you'll see that i've got some intelligent points too make. and yes, i do learn, and yes, i do listen. and yes, this stressed me out a lot last night, and i'm so glad that you and hopefullt your g/f as well are ready to talk openly and friendly-like. i'm sorry if my goofy attitude gets in the way and makes me seem like something else. and i'm sorry if i contributed to your anger in any way. let's move on, shall we?