• Question: did someone get hurt in the lab...and i mean really hurt!

    Asked by ddan370 to Aggelos, Andrew, Eileen, Naomi, Shane on 14 Nov 2012. This question was also asked by kieran12.
    • Photo: Andrew Jackson

      Andrew Jackson answered on 14 Nov 2012:

      Not in any of my labs. But a phd student in the USA died this year in a back accident. She was not wearing her lab coat and her clothes caught fire when something spilled on her. It was awful, and is a very good reminder of why you must wear lab coats and safety goggles when working in laboratories.

    • Photo: Eileen Diskin

      Eileen Diskin answered on 14 Nov 2012:

      No, thankfully I haven’t, although I’ve had some close calls. When I was in college, I made one or two mistakes mixing chemicals (the wrong ones), but nothing too bad happened. But I learned my lesson, to always read the labels really carefully!!!

    • Photo: Aggelos Zacharopoulos

      Aggelos Zacharopoulos answered on 15 Nov 2012:

      @ddan370
      We do get some light injuries in my lab but nothing too worrying. Otherwise health and safety reps would shut us down! The worst I can remeber is a colleague of mine getting his finger trapped under a bulk of concrete. He was lucky not to lose the tip of his finger!

      Health and safety is obligatory requirement for all labs at the university so big accidents should be very very rare! (famous last words)

    • Photo: Naomi Elster

      Naomi Elster answered on 15 Nov 2012:

      Labs are dangerous places, full of dangerous things. This is why health and safety in the lab is so important and is taken so seriously. Everything is put in the right place and stored in the right type of container, and we wear safety equipment like our lab coats, which are flame proof and chemical proof – they’re not just for fashion! We also get a lot of training before we are allowed to work in the lab, and because of all of this, accidents in the lab are very rare. No one’s ever been hurt in any lab I worked in.

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