October 2010 - Lawrence, Kansas: Kathy Richardson, a hazardous waste technician with the Lawrence Waste Reduction and Recycling Division, left, inspects an old doctor's bag from the collection of the Watkins Community Museum of History with museum director Rebecca Phipps. Employees at the museum recently opened the medicine bag and discovered a vial of nitroglycerin, used for certain heart ailments but also used in making dynamite.

It was actually a very close call Ms. Richardson as the young lady would recall the tense incident for a local news reporter:

"When we put all the pieces together, we didn't touch it -- we put it down on the table and ran. If I would've dropped it, it would've blown up. If we would've opened the cork to the vial, it would've exploded. The whole building could've gone up in flames."

Richardson along with other back-up from other Hazardous Waste Technicians, the police bomb squad and a local HAZMAT team responded and properly resolved the incident involving the highly unstable hazardous material.

According to a local news report, the medicine bag and the vial containing the nitroglycerin was 100-year-old medicine, encrusted, crystallized, faintly labeled and "could have ended it all" for that young lady.

Thankfully, no one was harmed in the incident and everyone went home with a good war story to tell.