Well that was an impressive amount of damage for a few seconds' exposure. The doctors tell me the outer layer of the mucus membrane in my throat, and part of the bronchia and nasal passages were destroyed, which is what caused the flu symptoms. Apparently it takes about 3 weeks to grow a new layer, so for now the least bit of dust or allergen makes me cough. A HEPA air cleaner helps; air conditioners are troublesome.
A week after exposure, some of the epithelial cells on my eyes shedded off, and I got conjunctivitis. The infection spread to the other exposed tissue. It is responding well to antibiotics.
When I was in Florida, we had coral snakes--quite deadly, but highly visible due to red and yellow bands on their tails. There was another snake, entirely harmless and in fact beneficial as it eats rodents, and it also has read and yellow rings, but the colors do not touch. So we were given a rhyme to distinguish them:
Red touches yellow, kill a fellow.
Not very good poetry, but works nicely as a mnemonic. Perhaps we should be teaching this for mineral exploration as well.