Warning! Danger Ahead
I was working in a production lab that had very strict cleaning protocols. Shower in, shower out, respirator required at times; that kind of stuff. One time, I was in the lab by myself, just doing my work when all of a sudden, the most intense fire alarm I had ever heard in my life went off. Like, there were sirens blaring, lights flashing, and a robotic voice saying, “Evacuate the building immediately, this is not a drill”.
I panicked because if I went out the fire door in the lab, I was going to contaminate the entire production wing, but also, I didn’t want to lose my life, and the alarm seemed to make it pretty clear that was imminent. Luckily, my coworker busted into the room to get me and we evacuated through another airlock that was made for that kind of thing.
Turns out, the situation was incredibly dire—someone had dropped a 50-gallon drum of some nasty chemical in the wing and they had to shut down the entire production floor for a day.