A short while later, his hand began to burn. He immediately stopped the job, rinsed his hand, and had a corpsman check him out. Other than minor skin irritation, he had no other injuries. In a shop like avionics where this petty officer worked, people handle batteries daily. Some take for granted any dangers associated with handling them.
Batteries contain acid-based liquids, which helps create an electrical charge.
These liquids corrode metals, but burn human flesh. See how a few seconds of assessing the risks could have prevented this mishap. The time it would have taken to do this assessment is much less than the time the petty officer took to wash off the battery acid and have his hand checked. The hazard is leaking battery fluid. If you don't want to risk getting burned by battery acid, wear chemical gloves to avoid touching the fluid.