What does tear gas feel like? Protesters, medical expert describe the experience

It felt like running through campfire smoke spiked with jalapeno spice.

It looked like watered-down glue as it swirled down the shower drain.

I couldn’t see.

I couldn’t breathe.

Many young protesters had their first run-in with tear gas the past few days as Kansas City police used it to disperse crowds around the Country Club Plaza. Clouds of the chemical irritant have become ubiquitous in scenes of protests across the country, sparked by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

More than 150 people were arrested during the first three days of protests that left people injured and businesses around the Plaza damaged. Protests, arrests and tear gas continued on Monday.

“When you want to know what tear gas feels like, I can tell you first-hand, because I have been tear-gassed,” said Dr. Jeffrey Goodloe, a professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Oklahoma School of Community Medicine in Tulsa.

“I can tell you it was one of the most unpleasant experiences of my life.”

Goodloe has been involved in emergency medical services for more than 30 years. During a training session still seared into his memory, he was shut inside a room filled with a “significant dose” of tear gas. He didn’t wear a mask.

“I think one thing that some people may not know is about 10% of the population, for whatever reason, is just not sensitive to tear gas,” Goodloe said. “It’s just a genetic thing. … They could basically bathe in tear gas and they would really have no symptoms.

“I am definitely a card-carrying member for life of the 90%.”

In an instant, he could not speak. He could not breathe — the same experience described by protesters who ran through tear gas on the Plaza. Tears sprang up quickly because tear gas is, like onions, a lacrimator — something that produces tears, he said.

“You’ll notice a very runny nose. That’s also part of this lacrimator complex — think of oozing tears and snot. It’s not a little drip or two that you might dab with a Kleenex. You’re just pouring snot. It’s socially unpleasant,” he said.

“You feel some burning in your mouth, and again that’s just inhaling the gas. An asthmatic knows what this feels like, unfortunately, on a pretty routine basis as part of their asthma, when your lungs get irritated and the air passages start to spasm.

“Technically we call that a bronchospasm. That’s unpleasant because you feel like you’re not able to breathe easily, you’re not able to get your air in and out without some resistance.”

None of those effects are permanent, said Goodloe. “Tear gas is certainly not designed to be lethal,” he said.

But Goodloe, a board member of the American College of Emergency Physicians, did offer advice for a certain subset of protesters.

“I’m a strong believer in someone’s rights to peaceably assemble and speak for change that they desire, so I’m not trying to discourage someone’s ability to speak out,” he said. “But if I personally had asthma or any other type of chronic respiratory condition, like COPD, I would be very careful about going out and participating in a protest that I thought could involve the presence of tear gas.

“If you’re already sensitive to breathing difficulties, getting a dose of this gas is certainly not going to help that, and it could trigger a more serious asthma attack. So I think a note of caution is important for anyone with those kinds of respiratory diseases.”

How long the effects linger depends “on what kind of dose of it that someone got,” he said. “How close were they to the tear gas canister? How long did they stay in that immediate area?

“Typically, the uncomfortable feelings of tear gas will go away somewhere within 15 to 30 minutes. Perhaps even a little sooner, if as soon as someone notices that tear gas is evident they get out of that immediate area and limit the dose. It’s very, very dose dependent.”

Got milk?

Brandon Henderson didn’t get hit with as much tear gas as some of his fellow demonstrators on Saturday. The effects of the pepper spray police also used, though, lingered longer — he slept with a bowl of water and baking soda next to his bed that night to cool the pain. “My hands still felt like they were on fire,” said Henderson, the new student body president at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

He said he caught a break when police dropped the tear gas canisters in front of him: The wind blew it away from the crowd, giving him enough time to “back up and wait for it to dissipate.”

“For a while I thought someone in the crowd had thrown, like, a smoke canister,” he said. “That’s what I thought it was at first. And then it kind of started to drift toward me and I was like, ‘Oh s**t, that’s not smoke.’

“Your eyes start to get pretty watery, and it kinda feels like the air is disappearing around you. It’s designed to be extremely uncomfortable, to disperse the area. And so while I was still able to breathe, because I don’t have any respiratory issues, it almost simulates not being able to breathe.”

More demonstrators on Sunday showed up with jugs of milk, commonly used to flush pepper spray out of the eyes. Goodloe, though, said water works just as well.

“Milk really doesn’t do anything that water doesn’t. Not for tear gas anyway,” said Goodloe. “I often see people using water to try to dilute it. As much as anything, just walking around a bit and trying to let the gas dissipate on its own is really just as effective.”

Pepper spray is more visible on the skin — a rust, orangey color — and can’t easily be wiped off, which intensifies the burning sensation “because now it’s just not a gas that’s kind of washed over you, it’s actually a chemical that’s sticking on your face.”

He said he’s hesitant to volunteer to be pepper-sprayed for training purposes because “I’ve had people with pretty significant law enforcement experience tell me they personally would prefer to get tear gassed over pepper sprayed.”

Kansas City demonstrators took the lingering effects of the tear gas home with them.

One 19-year-old woman, who said she’s “a black female and everything gets trapped in my hair” — described how the water in her shower, three hours after being tear gassed, turned a translucent white, like watered-down glue as she washed off the residue.

“This gas attaches itself to clothing and our hair,” said Goodloe. “So if someone was exposed to tear gas, and then they go home after a protest, I would definitely recommend a shower before you go to bed. And putting your clothing that was exposed to tear gas in a washing machine, because without those steps, that will continue to be present for some time.

“And even when taking a shower you have to be a little bit careful because if you have more gas kind of sticking in your hair, and it’s not something you can feel per se, but it’s there, somebody with longer hair in particular may have more gas just because they have more hair to begin with.

“You have to be careful how you shower or you can inadvertently get a dose back in your eyes. And you’ll feel it.”

Goodloe said he was glad to see in news reports of the protests nationwide that people are wearing masks during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. “That will help to control the respiratory droplet spread of coronavirus,” he said. “But those same masks will really not to do anything to protect from tear gas or anything similar to that.”

Henderson and some of his fellow protesters learned a valuable lesson about showering after being tear gassed. They made the water too warm, which opened up their pores and made the residue seep in and burn anew.

But, they said a little tear gas didn’t stop them from protesting again.

“A lot of people were scared and didn’t know what to do,” said Henderson. “I will say this about the organizers. They were really, really good about treating the people who didn’t have experience. A lot of people came prepared with solution to put in your face. They were ready for it.

“The most remarkable thing was even after being on the receiving end of this, people would clean up and go right back out there.”