The current maiden was chamber is not bad at all for 95% of people. And the 5% that have a bad experience is because they didn't listen and probably did something they were told not to do.
You do the gas chamber during your week of fire fighting training. Don't remember the exact day, but I beileive its the third or fourth day. On that day, you will learn some things then start the process of the gas chamber.
It starts off with you getting a little safety brief by a chief or an officer (can't remember who it was exactly). After that everyone will fall out and get the equipment for the chamber basically it's the mask along with the filter (forgot what it's actually called, but it help stops the gas). After that you will fall back in to the classroom and put on the mask. They have different sizes of masks and even have masks for people that have specific allergies. You will then test the mask for a proper seal. At this point you MIGHT start to feel or smell the gas depending on however well the person before you cleaned the mask. Once everyone says they have a proper seal then you will fall out to the gas chamber. After you form up inside the gas chamber, the main instructor will give another safety brief and tell you what you need to do. He will pop the gas and leave and let the other instructors do their job.
At this point since everyone is in rows with the exception of a few of the leadership positions, the first row will take off their mask and the two instructors will ask each person to say their name and division number. Once everyone in a row is done, you are free to go and they will let you leave. You will then fall back into the classroom where a corpsman is there for anyone that needs it (the 5% that claim they are dying).
And yes it is water activated, or so they told us, but as long as once you are done you don't keep rubbing your eyes, you will be ok. We had a group of swimmers that went directly to the pool afterwards and swam and they didn't have any complaints.
So now that you know what's going to happen, you don't have to worry. No one has died from it, only some throw up from the people that probably forced themselves to throw up.
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