It wont harm you any worse than you already are...

 

Words from a real doctor. they're gossipal. So everything be ok, as ok as they were before hand.

 

wow...no one is giving me a serious answer to a pretty serious problem.

 

Its likely Radon gas inside the bulb - if it broke, the gas is gone and the gas should be inert - as in wont harm you.

Now, do you see any mercury on the flloor?

Wear disposable gloves and pick up any pieces of glass, and any mercury that can be found, and whats left of the bulb and put it in a double plastic bag and throw it in the garbage. Try not to breath in any vapor from the mercury. It happened, theres not a lot you can do about it.

 

From Wikipedia:

"Special handling upon breakage is currently not printed on the packaging of household CFL bulbs in many countries. It is important to note that the amount of mercury released by one bulb can exceed U.S. federal guidelines for chronic exposure.[46][42] Chronic however, implies that the exposure takes place over a long period of time. Where the mercury in CFLs becomes hazardous is because one broken bulb can spike mercury contamination as high as 100,000ng/m3 of air - some 300 times the EPA chronic limit of only 300ng/m3 of air. The Maine DEP study confirmed that despite following EPA best practice cleanup guidelines on broken CFLs, researchers were unable to remove mercury from carpet, and any agitation of the carpet - particularly by young children playing - created spikes as high as 25,000ng/m3 of air even weeks after the initial breakage. Conventional tubular fluorescent lamps have been used since 1938 with little concern about handling, although are not generally subjected to the rigours of ordinary household use. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommends that, in the absence of local guideline, fluorescent bulbs be double-bagged in plastic bags before disposal.[47]

The Maine DEP study of 2008 compared clean-up methods, and warned that the EPA recommendation of plastic bags was the worst choice, as vapours well above safe levels continued to leach from the bags. The Maine DEP now recommends a sealed glass jar as the best repository for a broken bulb.

The first step of processing CFLs involves crushing the bulbs in a machine that uses negative pressure ventilation and a mercury-absorbing filter or cold trap to contain mercury vapor. Many municipalities are purchasing such machines. The crushed glass and metal is stored in drums, ready for shipping to recycling factories."

 

When you turn the lamp on, the current flows through the electrical circuit to the electrodes. There is a considerable voltage across the electrodes, so electrons will migrate through the gas from one end of the tube to the other. This energy changes some of the mercury in the tube from a liquid to a gas. As electrons and charged atoms move through the tube, some of them will collide with the gaseous mercury atoms. These collisions excite the atoms, bumping electrons up to higher energy levels. When the electrons return to their original energy level, they release light photons.

The wavelength of a photon is determined by the particular electron arrangement in the atom. The electrons in mercury atoms are arranged in such a way that they mostly release light photons in the ultraviolet wavelength range. Our eyes don't register ultraviolet photons, so this sort of light needs to be converted into visible light to illuminate the lamp.

This is where the tube's phosphor powder coating comes in. Phosphors are substances that give off light when they are exposed to light. When a photon hits a phosphor atom, one of the phosphor's electrons jumps to a higher energy level and the atom heats up. When the electron falls back to its normal level, it releases energy in the form of another photon. This photon has less energy than the original photon, because some energy was lost as heat. In a fluorescent lamp, the emitted light is in the visible spectrum -- the phosphor gives off white light we can see. Manufacturers can vary the color of the light by using different combinations of phosphors.

If the white Phosphors are removed from inside the tube, the lamp will light the phosphors outside of the tube which is what you call a Black Light.

I hope you like the more in depth explaination......I believe you would need allot more gas then what is inside of that little spiral bulb before it could possibly suffocate you.
On the other hand, the vaporized mercury is of some concern but it would take years of repeated exposure to hurt you. Use caution to clean up any areas before youngsters play in the vicinity.

 

thats kind of crazy i have had 2 brake and never thought about any of this before

 

well i had a feeling they had some kinda gas in em.....they say to NOT vacuum the area as the heat from using the vacuum causes the lil mercury beads to evaporate then theyre everywhere.

also rocket, when you say years of repeated exposure....are you talking like it take years of many breakes or years from this one breakage.

 

CC.........It would take years of breaking CFLs, not just one bulb.

Please keep in mind that you are being exposed to Mercury on a daily basis from many different things.

1.) If you eat too much freshwater or saltwater fish. Called: Methyl-mercury

2.) If you till the land and create dust ( farming, ditch digging, landscaping etc ) Called : Inorganic mercury (mercuric salts)

3.) The old school dental fillings ( Silver Amalgam ) were made of 50% Pure Mercury and dentists put these in peoples mouths for years.

4.) Remember when Mt. Saint Helen's volcano erupted? This spewed Mercury vapor into the air and when this combines with other natural chemicals found in the environment it will create Inorganic mercury (mercuric salts).

Plants and other microorganisms absorb the inorganic mercury and convert it to organic form called Methyl-mercury.
Methyl-mercury is the form of mercury that is most likely to cause adverse health effects in the general population.
I hope this hasn't freaked you out. Please keep in mind that an upset women with a cast iron frying pan in her hands will kill you faster.
INTERNET DISCLAIMER: I am not an expert on Mercury nor am I a Medical professional.

 

so how did all this Mercury get here from the planet Mercury? Aliens?