The so called eco-lightbulbs you're talking about do not have a toxic gas that will harm you, but they do have mercury in the base and should be disposed of properly. So while you were not contaminated and may not become a zombie today, your teacher just screwed the earth with toxic mercury poisoning.
CFL bulbs like the one you described contain mercury fumes, and absorbed or breathed in can be toxic.
The amount of mercury released by one bulb (1-5 mg) can temporarily exceed U.S. federal guidelines for chronic exposure. Chronic however, implies that the exposure continues constantly over a long period of time and the Maine DEP study noted that it remains unclear what the health risks are from short-term exposure to low levels of elemental mercury. The Maine DEP study also confirmed that, despite following EPA best-practice cleanup guidelines on broken CFLs, researchers were unable to remove mercury from carpet, and agitation of the carpet ― such as by young children playing ― created localized concentrations as high as 0.025 mg/m3 in air close to the carpet, even weeks after the initial breakage.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has published best practices for cleanup of broken CFLs, as well as ways to avoid breakage, on its web site. It recommends airing out the room and carefully disposing of broken pieces in a jar. A Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) study of 2008 comparing clean-up methods warns that using plastic bags to store broken CFL bulbs is dangerous because vapors well above safe levels continue to leach from the bags. The EPA and the Maine DEP now recommend a sealed glass jar as the best repository for a broken bulb.
It's only slightly unhealthy if you somehow breath in the phosphorous dust that the inside of the glass is coated with. The odor that's given off won't harm you unless your in a very small enclosed room.
CFLs are actually filled with a inert gas rather than a vacuum.
The smell is that gas.
Just consider it as taking one for the environment. Do you want to be safe, or have the environment be safe and stop global warming?
The spiral lightbulbs , the Eco friendly ones. Today a girl in my class dropped one of those light bulbs and then the classroom started to smell funny, but all the teacher did was clean up the bits of broken class. He didn't open the windows,make us the the room or anything, he just yelled at us to get back to work, so we continued on like nothing had happened, but the smell was still there.So when you break the Eco friendly lightbulbs are the fumes toxic?
