Evacuation of tube with electrodes

The other day i managed to make a T connection between two tubes. I then removed most of the air from the tube(25" Hg vacuum). After i verified that the tube did hold vacuum i put some water in it. I did a test boil while attached to the vacuum to be sure that the boiling water would not overcome the vacuum. While testing the water boiled and as far as i could tell the vacuum did not change. I then sealed off the connection to the vacuum pump and began to heat the sealed tube. 

I began to boil the sealed tube. After about 20 seconds the tube started to make noise and then it changed from transparent to translucent. All of this took place in less than 1/10 of a second, my initial thoughts were that something was going to happen so i started to turn my head and just then the tube exploded.

I realized that the vacuum was lost when i tried to seal the tube from the pump. The tube came to atmospheric pressure and was sealed. This is why the tube exploded when i began to boil the water.

I was holding the tube by the portion that was sealed off from the vacuum pump. When the tube exploded a portion of glass struck my thumb. This cut my thumb very deep, about 3/8 " deep and about 3/8 " wide.  Alot of "meat" was hanging out and my thumb was bleeding rather heavily. I allowed it to bleed for about a minute and then stuffed the meat back into my thumb. Then i pinched my thumb into my middle finger to stop the bleeding. While cleaning up the busted tube i found the peice that had struck my thumb. It was shaped like the cutting edge of a wood chisel.

After a few minutes of pinching my thumb i decided to assess the damage. It looked like it should have atleast 4 stitches. Instead of going to the ER i grabbed some electrical tape.  The next day the thumb was very soar. I couldnt even move it. I took the tape off and put a home made split on and put a new wrap of electrical tape on. The next day i inspected my thumb again and found that it was healing nicely. Once again i put a home made split on and applied a new wrap of electrical tape.  This went on for 3 days and then i allowed my thumb into the air.

My thumb is almost completely healed now (day 5). So i started to make another T tube. This time i added electrodes. Now i had a T tube that holds a vacuum and it has electrodes.

The tube in the picture is my second T tube. I never got a chance to get a picture of the first tube prior to the explosion.

I may attempt to put some CO2 into this tube in order to conduct my first experiment.