I would like to second the silicosis comment. I work in chemical and physical hazards and do air monitoring. Media used in 'sand blasting' is typically, steel shot, amorphous silica or aluminum oxide depending on what you want to sand blast. These are less harmful to your body if inhaled, and aren't that big of a deal. It still would be good to wear a respirator when doing this as a precautionary principal.
If you use just sand, it contains silica. Which is basically glass. Your body's defenses are the hair in your nose, mucus, and cilia in your respiratory tract. That gets the very small and very large particles so you can hack them up or pick them out with your finger
There are particles that fit in the middle range of size. These types of particles are too big AND too small to get caught up in your body's defenses before they reach the air sacks in your lungs called the alveoli, (this is where the air diffuses in and out of your blood).
Your body still has other defenses, white blood cells, that attack the contaminants that enter your alveoli. These are alveolar macrophages. They do a great job with most stuff, except for silica, especially respirable silica (the size that gets into the alveoli).
Once respirable silica enters your alveoli, the macrophages get to work trying to engulf it, but since it is basically small shards of glass.... the macrophages end up being pierced through after they engulf it and die. This creates a cascade of health effects that could potentially kill you, and and best, reduces your lung function and quality of life (ever heard of COPD?). Once the macrophage dies, it creates a histamine reaction which increases swelling and more macrophages come to the rescue. They end up dying too and fluid, swelling, dead macrophages, and scarring accumulate. The alveoli that were affected basically become hard and full of fluid/dont work. Your lungs are elastic, so the scarring and hardness inhibits its ability to expand/contract so less air gets in and out with each breath. Because the alveoli lose their ability to function, even the air you breath in is not used as much. The silica can cause cancer as well due to chronic inflammation and other factors.
So basically, if you are exposed to too much respirable silica (when sand blasting with normal sand, higher amounts of respirable slilica are generated because you are breaking it down to smaller bits as it its the workpiece) you may end up dying due to respiratory failure or cancer.
As a precautionary principal, wear a real respirator the right way. Shave before you wear it, and dont use that crappy 'dust mask' spend $30 on a half face air purifying respirator with n-100 cartridges and prevent yourself from death by slow drowning without being in water.
I know of a guy that was a small contractor that employed a recently married 18 yr old guy to do abrasive blasting. He died soon afterwards from cancer due to the quartz silica found in the abrasive, which turned out to be sand. Use the right PPE, or use aluminum oxide media, it is cheap and can be reused up to a point.
So, just how long or short was that drive? 
