On Thu, 13 Jan 2011 17:58:53 +0000, David Lesher wrote:
"Steve B" writes:
I saw one fall out of a metal basket while being lifted onto an offshore
platform. I was on the boat. The crane operator made the pick, and the
basket was about twenty feet up off the boat deck when the bottles
shifted. One fell out, and landed, you guessed it, on the cap. It shot
up in the air, in a long arc, and landed sploosh in the water a ways
away. It would have killed anyone it hit.

http://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/investigation_reports/2008/aair/ao-2008-053.aspx

Some people have launched a lot of cylinders ... eg, per a post near the end of
http://www.michiganreefers.com/forums/lighting-filtration-other-equipment/43285-co2-dangers-safety-please-read.html
"I saw a bunch of ironworkers taking large oxygen cylinders and putting them on a
homemade ramp with the valve on the lower part of the ramp, they'd use a sledge
hammer to break off the valve and the tanks would fly over the detroit river
towards Canada. If you break off the valve, it can blow through concrete walls
in a house, through the roof, etc. it is very dangerous!."
and in http://www.siletzbay.com/Bearhawk/3.1.4-Tools-Welding 1/3 along,
"As the final work was being done on the dam there was a large cache of oxygen
and acetylene cylinders(200+) kept in a fenced area near the guard house.
Inventory began to show a shortage of 5 or 6 cylinders a day. After a lot of
finger pointing and investigation the contractor secretly setup a guard to
watch the guard. They discovered that, in his late night boredom, the security
guard would unlock the gated storage and roll several full oxygen cylinders down
to the edge of the partially filled lake. He'd point the base of the cylinder
towards the center of the lake and with a sledge hammer break the valve off.
The cylinder would rocket across the surface for several hundred yards then sink.
After they arrested the guard they dredghed the lake to find over 300 cylinders.
The cylinder supplier was surprised that the guard had been lucky enough to never
have an unguided cylinder come back his way."

Following link is completely unrelated to the above topic, but is vaguely
related to the original question about "breathing industrial oxygen."
Anyhow, in http://www.frenchriverland.com/livermore_falls.htm at a couple
of points a large tank of liquid oxygen shows up, although mis-identified as
nitrogen in one caption. Liquid oxygen is a not-breathable form of industrial
oxygen. (There's some metalwork at the link; see eg pictures with captions,
"Davis is polishing the LIMA 34's main sheave axle.", "Davis took a solid
piece of bronze stock and made the new sheave bearings.", "Bill Fay is using
thermite bars to burn the 3 inch thick cast iron head covers at Livermore
Falls" via liquid oxygen + acetylene + thermite.)

--
jiw