My face was on fire!

Last night, I was able to do something that has been on my bucket list for a few years. I got pepper sprayed! It was part of our MTC Security training and even though we didn't HAVE to get sprayed, I of course had to try it at least once. There were only a few girls that got sprayed and I was the only girl to represent MTC security. I'm pretty proud of that fact.

I unfortunately do not have any pictures but even if I did, I don't think I would post them. I seriously looked like a scary alien. My face was so red and my eye was so little. When I got to training, the Sergeants were telling us how horrible pepper spray was and a lot of people chickened out. I had to stand my ground. When I got to the front of the line, I had to close one eye with my hand, close the other eye and have it sprayed. I then opened my eye and it took a few seconds for it to hit but when it did, it hurt SO bad!

I was rushed to the hose and used LOTS of no-tear baby shampoo to wash out my eyes. After washing it out, the best thing to give your eye is air. There were three HUGE fans set up and people were crowded around it, prying their eye open with their fingers. My burn lasted a little bit longer than everyone else and it took me about 30 minutes to just be able to open my eye a little bit. It was around 45 minutes that I could open it on my own but it hurt a lot. The Sergeants were worried about me but they said it would take about 30 minutes to wear off so I don't see why they were making a big deal about me lasting 15 minutes longer than the average person.

I had to promise them that I would have someone pick me up when I got back tot the MTC. I called my friend Caitlin, who was seriously a life saver, and she picked me up. Later that night I took a shower and had to be really careful. The Sergeants had warned us that the pepper spray in our hair might wash onto our faces and into our eyes again. I did not want to go through that pain again so I made sure to wash my hair really carefully. About half way into the shower my face started to burn and by the time the shower was over my face felt like it was on fire! I was semi-screaming/whaling and had to get an ice pack ASAP. I held it onto the left side of my face for about an hour and then went to bed. By the morning, everything was back to normal. It was like I hadn't been pepper sprayed at all.

I'm glad that I was able to try it out once and learn how it feels but I do not want to be pepper sprayed again any time soon. If you really want to be sprayed, you probably should do it but don't do it a second time. Who knows, maybe you'll be one of the people that isn't even affected by it.