Subject: Re: Lab Accidents
From: pclarke@waite.adelaide.edu.au (Philip Clarke)
Date: Fri, 06 Dec 1996 07:44:00 -0600

I remember sharing the lab (when I was a PhD student) with another PhD student
who was more interested in shopping than in research. I remember after she left
for her first postdoc job in Switzerland, my superviser said that he could
imagine that she would end up being a fashion designer. Anyway
one day she was putting plastic tubing on a condensor, when from across
the room I hear the breaking of glass, so I go over and have a look.
Sure enough she broke the flange of the condensor and cut herself, after a few
seconds it started to bleed copiously, thats when she screamed, not before.
(Cruelly I left the condensor with the bit of flesh embedded
on it, on her desk, for when she came back from hospital.)

It was the middle of summer, when a fellow PhD student and myself
were a little bored. I had just finished working on a vaccuum
line, so I have a few litres of liquid nitrogen left over.
Well we got a HDPE squeeze bottle, half filled it with liquid nitrogen
put the lid on (with nozzle coming out of it). We wanted to see a jet of
gas spin the bottle around on the floor. Well it was a bit
dissapointing, only a little gas was coming out and that wasnt enough
to get the bottle to spin. So my collegue kicked the squeeze bottle
gently, and the gas started coming out faster, infact the nitrogen
must have been nudged up to its boiling point, because it started to come
rushing out, the bottle started spinning faster and faster, which
agitated the nitrogen even more, which made the gas come out
faster and faster, then when I thought it couldnt go any faster, the
fairly tough HDPE squeeze bottle expanded like a balloon, and BANG!
All I can say is that I was glad that the door to the
lab was closed and that it was lunchtime with no academics
in sight. That was the first and last time I have ever done anything like that.

I have kept a record of this and most other accidents reported to sci.chem
on the following web page
http://www.waite.adelaide.edu.au/~pclarke/chem/chem.html

Regards,
Philip
--
Life isn't meaningless it just has a poor signal to noise ratio.
--
Dr. Philip Clarke, Soil Science, Waite Solid-State NMR Facility
University of Adelaide, PMB 1, Glen Osmond, SA, Australia, 5064
Ans/Fax +618 8303 7399, Ph +618 8303 7385 pclarke@waite.adelaide.edu.au
URL  http://www.waite.adelaide.edu.au/~pclarke

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