CRT "hiss"/sucking in air?

I was disassembling a small CRT tube, and went to pull the yoke off. There was some small plastic piece on the end of the tube that looked like it was gonna be in the way of removing the yoke, so I tried to pull it off. Much to my dismay, there was a small shatter and an immediate hiss. Did I break open the CRT tube? I know CRT tubes contain some nasty crap, and while I pointed it away from (and not downwind of) me, I'm still kind of concerned. What did I do scrapmetalforum? :/

Oh the legand of the "gas inside the tv tube" story

Yeah, I knew about the stored charge. This was part of one of those ancient tv/radio/flashlight... things, probably hadn't been charged up in *years*. Thanks for the information about the tube. I was a little confused about what was actually inside of them. Consensus seems to be just don't breath em in directly and you (should be) fine, but it's not really recommended.

Back in the late '70's / early 80's, when I worked for Zenith Corp, one of our various jobs was sending defective and/or warranty parts back to the factory to get 'remanned'. We would usually have a semi load of CRT's ready to go before shipping. The Zenith factory rep instructed us to take a hammer and lightly tap the neck of the tube, just cracking it, but not to shatter it, before shipping. Also, you should stay away from the hole where the 'anode cap/lead' plugs in. It should be safe after a few years, but why risk it...

The best first thing to do with CRT's is to release the vacuum pressure inside them.
The vacuum inside them is a stored energy.
The first thing I do after taking the back off is to grab the board on the end of the tube and rock it or twist it so the glass cracks and the air leaks in.
Then wait till the sounds gone and undo the two clamps and remove the choke.

I onece tried to lever the steel band from around the screen, off with a screwdriver. The glass cracked there and the screen exploded like a glass hand grenade. I'm still amazed I was not hurt,, let alone blinded.