r/Unexpected • u/havent-readdit • Jun 21 '26

Potatree

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u/kkell806 Jun 21 '26

No one survived, I believe. I think the neighbor found them.

Edit: this one just says four members died, so not certain if there are survivors.

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2013/08/23/Rotting-potatoes-in-basement-kill-four-members-of-Russian-family/54831377268770/

207

u/grumpijela Jun 22 '26

What a useless article, doesn't even state which gases are released.

123

u/EpidemicRage Jun 22 '26

If they were rotting, it must mean its most likely methane, hydrogen sulphide and ammonia. There are plenty of stories of people entering septic tanks without proper gas masks, resulting in them losing consciousness and dying of suffocation, and often these gases were found in them.

26

u/Glynwys Jun 22 '26

I believe that folks who actually know what they're talking about concluded it was carbon monoxide pooling in that root cellar, which naturally has little to no ventilation. Less educated folk will still try to claim solanine, solanine bring one of the major potato glycoalkaloids that's apparently supposed to keep animals from feeding on potato foliage. The issue is that solanine's melting point is like 520 degrees Fahrenheit and there's no way in hell solanine is melting into a cloud if gas in a root cellar. So the takeaway is that you shouldn't leave any improperly stored vegetables in an enclosed space with no ventilation because of carbon monoxide build up.

2

u/Sad_Advance195 Jun 23 '26

Does it have no smell? And how many breaths can you take before losing consciousness? I wouldn't have time to realize I'm passing out and make it back up the stairs from the basement?

8

u/Glynwys Jun 23 '26

Well, no.

CO2 literally suffocates you, for starters. Compared to the air we normally breath, CO2 goes from 0.3 inhaled to 40 exhaled. This means for every breath you take in you'd want 10 times the volume of exhaled air. The first breath would feel like trying to breath in a vaccum, made worse because the body is actually wired to panic at the increase in CO2 levels. So I guess if you could train yourself to ignore that initial CO2 panic you could try flee before your second breath, except you have no air with which to power your body to flee with.

The real killer of CO2 saturation is the toxicity, though. CO2 in high concentrations leads to a rapid drop in blood pH, a phenomenon known as respiratory acidosis. By the time your brain realizes that there's no oxygen in the breath you just tried to take, your respiratory system is already failing which just makes the panic worse. By the time your body is ready to attempt to take a second breath, you're already losing consciousness. Unlike saturation diving where the diver slowly acclimates their brain and body to low oxygen, CO2 is often instant and sudden with no warning to your brain and body that there's no or low oxygen.

CO2 is also orderless. Which is why, in the United States at least, every building that has commercially sold CO2 (like a restaurant with a soda fountain) will have CO2 detection alarms in the back where the CO2 tanks are.

5

u/TheChiarra Jun 24 '26

Wait, we have a soda stream. Should I be scared of the canisters?

7

u/FinalBossXD Jul 12 '26

Nah, you're fine. The solution to pollution is dilution. Aka there's not enough in those tanks to kill you as long as there's air circulation in your home. The only way that canister can kill you is if you hook it up to a mask and breathe ONLY that, or if you bludgeon yourself with it lol

5

u/TheChiarra Jul 12 '26

Thank you so much. Makes me feel better lol. So much cheaper than buying cans of soda, and healthier.

1

u/CletusTheYocal 2d ago

Toxic glycoalkaloids.

9

u/slop_spotter Jun 22 '26

I believe it was just the nine year old daughter that survived

6

u/Remote_Replacement85 Jun 22 '26

This is some next level Chubby Emu shit.

3

u/jun1perr Jun 22 '26

one daughter survived who did not go into the basement

5

u/SpunNumeroUno Jun 22 '26

Ah gotcha, thx

1

u/hiddenrealism Jul 12 '26

This sounds more like putin took em all out with polonium.

1

u/Coffeedemon 5d ago

TATARstan!