In safety training at a university, we were instructed that if we were exposed to aqueous HF, we were to immediately slather on calcium gluconate on the burn area, grab an HF MSDS, and demand that the ambulance take us to a specific Level 1 trauma center and insist that the physicians understand that we were exposed to HF and not some generic acid.
I don't know the precise mechanism for toxicity (I thought it was hypocalcemia), but if the tradionally safety-lax academia takes HF that seriously, you know it's the real deal.