Unbearable pain

On Monday I found out that I would be getting pepper sprayed on Tuesday. Everyone in the group was freaking out and psyching themselves out, yet I stayed pretty cool thinking it wouldn't be terribly bad since I've rubbed my eye after cutting habaneros and other peppers in the past. In the end, I shouldn't have underestimated the power of pepper spray.

To put you in the right perspective, a habanero pepper is one of the hottest peppers around, and it is rated at 300,000 SHU's. The pepper spray that was used was rated 2 million SHU's. It royally kicked my butt. Not only did we get sprayed, but we had to go through a variety of different skills and tasks afterwards. I only expected the pain to last 45 mins max since thats what the manual said...but the intense pain didn't go away till about 3 hours, and it was still quite painful all night. My face felt completely burnt to the point that my skin felt like it was melting, my eyes were screaming in agony and were slamed shut, and a stream of snot kept on running out of my nose. I just pray that none of you will have to go through what I went through. One guy said, "I'd rather be in Iraq for 1 month getting shot at then get pepper sprayed again."

Well...thinking it was all over this morning, I still had a huge migrane headache and still had some "heat" from the spray that intensified when I took a shower. LOL it's funny looking back on it, but it is definitely something I'd never wish to experience again.