During my career, I never received any training on how to deal with broken mercury lamps and the health hazards of the mercury released.

The biologically toxic field of high altitude astronomy was the only employer that sent me on a ‘How to deal with unacceptable employee behavior’ management course.

Mercury poisoning will take you into a very dark place and chelation will bring you back into the light.

I associate professional astronomy with toxic workplaces, harassment and safety cover-ups.

After telling many doctors that I have mercury poisoning from working with mercury systems, I have never been referred to a specialist in the toxicology of mercury.

Despite being required to work on mercury systems, the management team never sent me on an industry recognized mercury training course and I ended up with nasty mercury poisoning.

I was mercury poisoned at the Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO).

I consider myself fortunate that I no longer live in the home where I broke a mercury filled astronomical spectral lamp.

The entire astronomical observatory team were installing a mercury argon spectral lamp (HgAr) during a training session when one of the workers smashed the mercury filled spectral lamp. We continued the training session with a new mercury spectral lamp from stock. A week later I was at the doctors complaining of a variety of health conditions that were classic mercury poisoning.