One hot mother!!! Be careful in your garage!!!!!!!!!!!

Back in the 80s I had a two car garage where I did all my engine work. I'm not very organized so the floor was always cluttered with tools, parts, sheet metal, weights (for lifting), weight bench, and junk. Against the back wall of the garage I had my Oxy-Acetylene tanks. I was working outside just in front of the garage one day when I heard a loud pop coming from the inside the garage. At first I was puzzled until I heard a pretty loud hissing. After a few seconds I realized that the hissing was coming from my Oxy/Acetylene bottles. I walked toward the garage slowly and tried to focus on the exact location of where the sound was coming from. Didn't know which bottle was the problem until I smelled Acetylene. Now I started to get a little scared because between me and the tanks was a mine field of metal objects that I would have to walk through to get to the leaking tank. The smell was getting stronger and stronger. I had to walk back outside and take a deep breath just to re-enter my garage. I held my breath and slowly and carefully walked through all the metal objects scattered on the floor (without making a spark) to get to the bottles. I managed to get to the Acetylene bottle and carefully shut it off (main shut off valve). It was all I could do to hold my breath long enough to pick my way through all the junk with making a spark and shut off the bottle then scamper back outside to get a breath of air. In the end, the regulator had busted and allowed acetylene to leak (at a high rate) out into the garage. To this day I always shut my tanks off after every use, I never thought that a regulator would bust and relase gas at such a high rate!! I couldn't re-enter the garage for about 20 min. That stuff stinks!!!