First of all, thanks to all who expressed support and offered constructive criticism on our unfortunate incident with BEAR SPRAY that went off like a bomb inside our pickup cab. Although I felt like a complete idiot in it's aftermath, I felt like my experience could help prevent it from happening to someone else. That in itself tempers my embarrassment at being so stupid in the first place. Much thanks also to bfast54 who suggested that maybe some of it got onto my heater core and could cause problems when the weather turns cold again. It had not occurred to me.
The first thing I had done was a complete interior detail to remove as much of the bear spray from every square inch of the cab. Because they had to wear respirators (among other things), the cost went up from an original quote of $120, up to $250.
Next, I had to have the windshield replaced because of the huge bullseye created by the explosion. I have a "Zero" deductible on comprehensive and actually made $100 back on the deal from my regular windshield replacement shop. By the way, the installer pointed out places where the detailers could not have reached without the windshield being removed. He even got "burned" by this residual spray in the process.
I made a trip to Boise when those first two jobs were done and noticed that my DVD player was skipping. Never did that before. Took the truck for the final repair to the local Ford dealer for fixing the panels on the dash that got blown out and replacement of the automatic headlight sensor that was destroyed. I mentioned bfast54's suggestion and that just about totally changed the estimate. The dealer guy said that if the spray got into the ventilation ducting, there was no way it could be cleaned out. End result, I'm getting a whole new dash and DVD player, all to the tune of just a tad over $2400. Needless to say, my insurance man was not happy with all the expense over a virtual bomb going off in the cab.
In response to some who wrote that it would never get that hot while actually driving, that's true, but my point was that just having the bear spray in the cab put me/us at risk because, who knows what else could have triggered the spray to go off, like accidentally tripping off the "safety" when driving on bad roads (i.e. the 60 mile off-pavement trip we took in April to Toroweap on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon). When I look at the shard of metal, flattened by the blast, that was formerly the bear spray canister, I think that the pain of the spray on our faces, in our lungs, and on all exposed skin would have been the least of our worries. Who knows what would have happened if that shard had severed a jugular vein or carotid artery.
Thanks again to all who offered support. It was much appreciated. We are now sadder but much, much wiser for this experience. Helping others avoid our pain is what this post is all about.
