Can a poison control expert in the Iron Lung fandom speak to this for me?
On my first watch, I interpreted the alcohol scene to mean that the COI had filled the SM-13’s survival kit with a bunch of bullshit and gave Simon hooch instead of proper rubbing alcohol.
The measly amount of water they gave him. Survival amounts of water would be 1 gallon per person per day just for drinking, or you use a purification system to get more drinking water. (There was room in that locker for a 1 gallon tank or jug).
They gave him a block of “food” labeled at 1,200 calories as his emergency rations. I’m sure things are tight after the quiet rapture but come on.
The two above indicate to me that the COI is not trying to buy time to find the operator of the SM-13, only giving them “supplies” so they can say that they did. This is supported by the fact that the SM-13 is known as a “burner sub” and other convicts have been sent down in it to die.
When Simon opens the alcohol, he has a cotton pad in hand ready to treat his wounds. Then he smells it from afar, frowns, checks the label, sniffs it again, then gets a look like “fuck it,” and drinks it. That sounds an awful lot like the substance in the jar is not what it says it is.
My understanding is that drinkable alcohols are not concentrated enough to clean a wound. Simon might’ve preferred to take the edge off of the horrors rather than futilely rub vodka on his many scrapes and cuts (although he could have thought this even if it was methanol I suppose, or not known that vodka isn’t strong enough to clean wounds)
10 ml of rubbing alcohol can cause permanent blindness. The container Simon drank looked like… more than that.
IMMEDIATELY AFTER supposedly drinking enough rubbing alcohol to blind (and maybe kill) a person, he says “I’m not dying down here.” I don’t think Simon thinks he just drank rubbing alcohol.
Does anyone with more knowledge about methanol poisoning or alcohol distillation in general have anything to add? I’m begging.
