Network TenA live science experiment on Australian TV nearly took a dark turn when one of the hosts was involved in a very close encounter, courtesy of a flying bottle of coke.
It would have also been a PR disaster for Coca-Cola as their fizzy drink-fuelled mini rocket was inches away from taking off the face of Studio 10 host, Natarsha Belling and Youtube vlogger Jacob Strickling.
Strickling was demonstrating a simple experiment in which he mixed liquid nitrogen with the popular fizzy drinks to make bottles fly off into the sky.
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As you should know with all science experiments they have potential to be dangerous. In fact, I’m pretty sure chemistry-101 tells us safety first.
Hence why Strickling and the hosts were wearing safety goggles, they were even wearing lab coats, which is the ultimate sign of safety and scientific professionalism… apparently. Unfortunately, all the lab coats in the world couldn’t prevent the danger which nearly befell Belling and Strickling.
After successfully firing some bottle rockets into the sky, Stirckiling is encouraged to do one more, and he happily obliges, however the bottle takes off at a dangerous trajectory.
The course being inches away from one of Belling’s face, at the speed Strickling’s bottle rocket was travelling at she’s lucky she dodged it just in time… otherwise, I’d written an obituary, not a funny piece about how she and Strickling almost had their faces wiped out.
Having done the experiment twice already he encouraged Belling to have a go, he said:
… put in the liquid nitrogen, and when I say invert it, that means turn it upside down. Then you turn it upside down…
Just face it towards the sky, not towards the cameras…
… I’ve done it twice you should have been watching.
Network 10However, turns out Belling wasn’t paying attention she even admitted to Strickling she ‘wasn’t watching’ what he was doing. Well, she nearly regretted when she caused an on-screen pandemonium.
The force of the bottle rocket was so strong it snapped off a substantial branch from a nearby tree.
You’d think after dicing with death everyone would be a little shook up, perhaps a bit angry at Belling for nearly killing everyone.
Network 10Yet they all took in jest with Strickling telling the crew:
I told you this was going to be the best live TV ever
Network 10Belling who was lucky that all she had to deal with was momentary deafness in her right ear jokingly asked Strickling for his insurance details.
Let that be a lesson to you, always listen to your science teacher, unless the idea of having sulphuric acid burn through your eyes is your idea of fun – which I’m pretty sure is not.
