Lab safety violations

[American]

"Dr. Shigeru Omi, the WHO's Western Pacific regional director, told reporters in Manila, the Philippines, that the Taiwanese scientist was working without protective gear, such as gloves and a gown."

Taiwan Lab Worker Contracts SARS (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,105979,00.html)


What are some violations you have seen or situations that have bothered you that should be addressed but never are until someone gets hurt? I'll start:


- Most safety goggles don't seem to slant down far enough, especially on school children. An exploding liquid could easily shoot up under the glasses straight into your eyes.

- Safety showers are often built without drains, making one reluctant to use it when they should at the price of flooding the building. Also, you're supposed to strip contaminated clothing off of you... although I am the sexiest scientist I've ever known and don't mind being naked in public, I knew one elder gentleman past his physical prime who was too modest to remove his shirt soaked with corrosive chromium-something. He got burned.

- I know professors who pick up ethidium bromide stained gels with their bare hands. They get huffy when I suggest they wear gloves.

- There are fanatical fans of mercury thermometers over alcohol-based. They rant that the EPA is out to get them, while the agency unfairly allows mercury-vapor headlights.

- Some tasks must be done under a fume hood. Unless it's slightly awkward, then they just don't bother.


My point is that the doctor who died may have been breaking the safety rules, but there are many places where you have to break them or they won't want you working there. Except once a year when government inspectors come through, and then you're supposed to memorize MSDS and practice all the safety rules you never use.

(*This is all based on my distant past experience, not my current employer who is really a monolith of safety. God, don't fire me.)

[BTox]

Originally posted by American
"
What are some violations you have seen or situations that have bothered you that should be addressed but never are until someone gets hurt? I'll start:



We have so many safety inspections here we call the chief inspector "Dr. Blix". ;)

[Mr. Skinny]

Well, I'm a Safety Engineer in a government research laboratory, so this thread certainly caught my interest.:)



Originally posted by American
"Dr. Shigeru Omi, the WHO's Western Pacific regional director, told reporters in Manila, the Philippines, that the Taiwanese scientist was working without protective gear, such as gloves and a gown."

Taiwan Lab Worker Contracts SARS (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,105979,00.html)


What are some violations you have seen or situations that have bothered you that should be addressed but never are until someone gets hurt? I'll start:

I could fill up pages with examples of stuff I've seen, but I'd bore you.




- Most safety goggles don't seem to slant down far enough, especially on school children. An exploding liquid could easily shoot up under the glasses straight into your eyes.
Can I suggest that the person should be wearing a full face shield and possibly should be working behind a benchtop blast shield?

- Safety showers are often built without drains, making one reluctant to use it when they should at the price of flooding the building. Also, you're supposed to strip contaminated clothing off of you... although I am the sexiest scientist I've ever known and don't mind being naked in public, I knew one elder gentleman past his physical prime who was too modest to remove his shirt soaked with corrosive chromium-something. He got burned.
Our safety showers don't have floor drains either, since they weren't required by regulation back in the 70's and 80's, but most governmnet worker won't worry about flooding the building.:D Some of our showers have "modesty" curtains around them, but most don't. Our employees are instructed to strip the clothes off a person without asking their permission (more or less).
- I know professors who pick up ethidium bromide stained gels with their bare hands. They get huffy when I suggest they wear gloves.
I'm not familiar with ethidum bromide, but I don't have too much of a problem with glove use in my lab. We have over 25,000 different chemicals in the lab, so people are used to working in gloves while handling any chemical.

- There are fanatical fans of mercury thermometers over alcohol-based. They rant that the EPA is out to get them, while the agency unfairly allows mercury-vapor headlights.
We have mercury spill kits in the hallways and also have the capability to suck up small spills with a vacuum pump/trap setup

- Some tasks must be done under a fume hood. Unless it's slightly awkward, then they just don't bother.
We have so many hoods operating, the researchers are never more than a few steps away from one, so it's typically not a problem where I work.

I did have a PhD. Materials Engineer contaminate a rather large laboratory once by grinding arsenic compounds at her desk with a mortar and pestle. (Her: "You mean arsenic is toxic ?")


My point is that the doctor who died may have been breaking the safety rules, but there are many places where you have to break them or they won't want you working there. Except once a year when government inspectors come through, and then you're supposed to memorize MSDS and practice all the safety rules you never use.
First, can I ask if you've reported these safety problems you've noticed to anyone in management? Do you have a safety person at work that you can talk to? Never mind, you did say these were at a previous employer.

Anyhow, if you live the the US, you can always call OSHA and make a complaint. They can always do a no notice inspection.

(*This is all based on my distant past experience, not my current employer who is really a monolith of safety. God, don't fire me.)
Hey, even if you didn't call OSHA, you could argue in your lawsuit that you were fired for complaining about safety issues. Juries generally don't like employers that do that. :)

[wayrad]

Unsecured compressed gas cylinders really give me the willies. Along with people who don't treat autoclaves with the proper caution. Unfortunately, in the academic environment there is generally no formal procedure for training grad students to use this stuff, and many don't take safety advice seriously when they do receive it. :mad:

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by wayrad
Unsecured compressed gas cylinders really give me the willies. Along with people who don't treat autoclaves with the proper caution. Unfortunately, in the academic environment there is generally no formal procedure for training grad students to use this stuff, and many don't take safety advice seriously when they do receive it. :mad:
Did something change? In the U.S., back in the 70s, biological labs handling unsafe agents were certified as P1, P2, etc. The standards set for each one were very clear, and all personnel had to be trained to enter such labs.

[Mr. Skinny]

Originally posted by BillHoyt

Did something change? In the U.S., back in the 70s, biological labs handling unsafe agents were certified as P1, P2, etc. The standards set for each one were very clear, and all personnel had to be trained to enter such labs.
Don't know about wayrad, but the lab I work in is not a biological lab, and doesn't fall under any of the certification standards you mentioned.

We are only governed by OSHA and Air Force safety standards.

[wayrad]

Originally posted by BillHoyt

Did something change? In the U.S., back in the 70s, biological labs handling unsafe agents were certified as P1, P2, etc. The standards set for each one were very clear, and all personnel had to be trained to enter such labs. I am not familiar with those designations, but I wonder if they correspond to the current Biosafety Level I, II etc. designations. To my recollection (I left my lab's manuals at my old institution), those deal primarily with procedures for handling/disposal of biological materials (edited to add: also storage and handling of chemicals, come to think of it), not equipment usage (although access to certain equipment is required to meet the standards for some levels).

I worked during the early /mid 90's at a federal lab with mandatory training, and I don't remember any P designations there either, although there were various OSHA and EPA standards to be met. Perhaps the nomenclature has just been changed.

Edited to add: Aha, there are some online copies of the biosafety level standards, so I could refresh my memory. The verbiage on training is vague in the extreme, and pretty much leaves it up to the lab director to say what constitutes "training". In practice, this can mean having one student run another through a procedure. And of course large equipment items like autoclaves are usually communal, which introduces all sorts of confusion.

[SteveGrenard]

P1,2,3 &4 are physical containment designations equivalent to BSL or BL 1,2,3 and 4 designed for recombinant DNA research. They are spelled out in the following document:

www.oecd.org/dataoecd/15/63/2389725.doc

The Ministry of Health and Welfare Notification No. 1997-22



Guidelines for researches involving recombinant DNA molecules in accordance with the provisions of Article 15 of the Biotechnology Promotion Law and Article 15 of the Enforcement Ordinance of the same law shall be established as follows.

(truncated)



April 22, 1997

Minister of Health and Welfare





Guidelines for researches involving recombinant DNA molecules

[wayrad]

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
P1,2,3 &4 are physical containment designations equivalent to BSL or BL 1,2,3 and 4 designed for recombinant DNA research. They are spelled out in the following document...
Aha, so that's it. Thank goodness I don't work with recombinant DNA (yet).

Edited to add: On second thought, since this appears to be an international standard established in 1997, it seems not to be what Bill was talking about. He was talking about a standard used in the US in the 70's. Perhaps he can clarify further.

[geni]

What is this lab safety? Come on it's not real chemistry is you leave the labs with the same colour hands as went in with. I mean if it didn't kill me last time it's not going to this time(Now you know why you have problems with students and safety).

[wayrad]

Originally posted by geni
What is this lab safety? Come on it's not real chemistry is you leave the labs with the same colour hands as went in with. I mean if it didn't kill me last time it's not going to this time(Now you know why you have problems with students and safety). You would have liked my Intro. Chem. class back in 1972. The final lab involved identification of organic compounds by smell...

[SteveGrenard]

Heres a follow-up to the original post from the listserv of the International Society for Infectious Diseases.

<http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1-935255,00.html>


Singapore: contacts of Taiwanese SARS case quarantined
------------------------------------------------------
Singapore ordered 70 people into quarantine today after a Taiwanese
scientist who visited the country this month tested positive for SARS virus
infection. Singapore's Health Ministry urged hospitals and private clinics
to step up vigilance, but said that there was no cause for alarm and there
were no new cases of the flu-like virus in the city-state. "There are no
signs of new SARS cases in Singapore and we are monitoring the situation
closely," the Ministry said. SARS killed 33 people in Singa ...(truncated) see above URL for complete story.

[Mr. Skinny]

Originally posted by geni
What is this lab safety? Come on it's not real chemistry is you leave the labs with the same colour hands as went in with. I mean if it didn't kill me last time it's not going to this time(Now you know why you have problems with students and safety).
Hehe,:) . That's similar to the story I often hear:

Lab Rat: "We've been doing it this way for (x) years".

My response: Well, you've been lucky for (x) years.

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by wayrad
You would have liked my Intro. Chem. class back in 1972. The final lab involved identification of organic compounds by smell...

Okay, class. The vials are marked A, B and C. One is butylene, one putrescine, and the third cadaverene. Please sniff and identify. Have your smelling salts at the ready.

[hal bidlack]

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
Heres a follow-up to the original post from the listserv of the International Society for Infectious Diseases.

<http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1-935255,00.html>


Singapore: contacts of Taiwanese SARS case quarantined
------------------------------------------------------
Singapore ordered 70 people into quarantine today after a Taiwanese
scientist who visited the country this month tested positive for SARS virus
infection. Singapore's Health Ministry urged hospitals and private clinics
to step up vigilance, but said that there was no cause for alarm and there
were no new cases of the flu-like virus in the city-state. "There are no
signs of new SARS cases in Singapore and we are monitoring the situation
closely," the Ministry said. SARS killed 33 people in Singa ...(truncated) see above URL for complete story.

<table cellspacing=1 cellpadding=4 bgcolor=#cc6666 border=0><tr><td bgcolor=#cc6666><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color=#ffffff size=1>Poste by hal:</font></td></tr><tr><td bgcolor=white><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color=black size=2>This thread has been reported, for copyright violations. However, it appears to have seen been edited, so is not a violation as I see it now.

hal
</font></td></tr></table>

[wayrad]

Originally posted by BillHoyt


Okay, class. The vials are marked A, B and C. One is butylene, one putrescine, and the third cadaverene. Please sniff and identify. Have your smelling salts at the ready. Yes, like that, except different chemicals. Some esters, if I remember correctly, and enough organic solvents so that my head hurt when I left. They'd never be able to do it nowadays.

[geni]

Originally posted by wayrad
Yes, like that, except different chemicals. Some esters, if I remember correctly, and enough organic solvents so that my head hurt when I left. They'd never be able to do it nowadays.

Not quite true. At A level chiral compounds are intoduced by useing a smell test. There is also some stuff about what esters and ketones smell like.

[wayrad]

Originally posted by geni


Not quite true. At A level chiral compounds are intoduced by useing a smell test. There is also some stuff about what esters and ketones smell like. Ah, sorry for the imprecision; it was the solvents I meant. I'm sure sniffing xylene can't be good for you...

edited to add: Chiral compounds? No kidding? Do the enantiomers smell different?:eek:

[jj]

Originally posted by BillHoyt


Okay, class. The vials are marked A, B and C. One is butylene, one putrescine, and the third cadaverene. Please sniff and identify. Have your smelling salts at the ready.

You left out thioglycolic acid, Bill, and methyl mercaptin.

[AK-Dave]

Originally posted by American
(*This is all based on my distant past experience, not my current employer who is really a monolith of safety. God, don't fire me.)

You work for God?!!






(sorry... I saw that line and I just HAD to be a smartass)

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by wayrad
Do the enantiomers smell different?:eek:

Only to the highly discriminating schnozz.

[American]

Originally posted by Mr. Skinny

Can I suggest that the person should be wearing a full face shield and possibly should be working behind a benchtop blast shield?

You can suggest it, and everyone will ignore the good advice until there's a lawsuit, or a massive fine, or an Important Person is injured in that way.


Originally posted by AK-Dave

You work for God?!!


I don't work at all! They pay me to look like I'm working. It's the same thing, you figure out pretty quickly. Bare minimum performance, and you get paid the same as someone with words like "superior" on their yearly review.

[wayrad]

Originally posted by BillHoyt


Only to the highly discriminating schnozz. I'll be darned...check this out!
http://www.leffingwell.com/chirality/chirality.htm

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by American

- Most safety goggles don't seem to slant down far enough, especially on school children. An exploding liquid could easily shoot up under the glasses straight into your eyes.

- Safety showers are often built without drains, making one reluctant to use it when they should at the price of flooding the building. Also, you're supposed to strip contaminated clothing off of you... although I am the sexiest scientist I've ever known and don't mind being naked in public, I knew one elder gentleman past his physical prime who was too modest to remove his shirt soaked with corrosive chromium-something. He got burned.

- I know professors who pick up ethidium bromide stained gels with their bare hands. They get huffy when I suggest they wear gloves.

- There are fanatical fans of mercury thermometers over alcohol-based. They rant that the EPA is out to get them, while the agency unfairly allows mercury-vapor headlights.

- Some tasks must be done under a fume hood. Unless it's slightly awkward, then they just don't bother.


We had a situation in which a cleaner picked up a very old bottle of TCA. The plastic had perished and crumbled in her hands and she got covered in TCA. Quick thinking on behalf of some meant she was in the female showers within a minute and covered with burn-pads by the time the ambulance arrived. She was very lucky and there was no scarring, it could have been very bad indeed.

There are two reasons to wear gloves. 1 to keep stuff off you. 2 to keep you off stuff. I normally just wear gloves in the lab as a default.

I dont wear goggles which may be silly.

The problem with alcohol thermometers is that they easily get air bubbles in the alcohol column which means they are then effectively useless.

I keep my lunch in the fridge along with all the biochemica.
:p

[Rolfe]

I had a biochemistry technician who deliberately jemmied the safety catch of the centrifuge so she could reach in and stop the rotor with her hand. When I protested, she said "I don't have time to wait for it to stop by itself." We had to replace the whole damn machine.

Memory triggered by that last post. When I was doing my PhD I used to arrive half an hour early because of the way the train timetable ran. I had started an assay in the lab, with only myself and the cleaner present. The cleaner toppled a Winchester with her mop, and it broke on the floor. Clear watery liquid spread around the lino.

She was about to fetch a cloth to mop the mess up by hand when I stopped her and said, "What is that you've spilled?" Concentrated sulphuric acid, that's what it was. I screamed a bit and dragged her away from it, and we stood there slightly helplessly as the stuff began to eat into the leg of a table. Fortunately at that moment the senior technician arrived. She knew what to do , and did it. Nobody was hurt, but we had to evacuate the lab and it took all morning for the area to be made safe.

The really stupid thing was that the Winchester of conc. sulphuric had just been sitting on the floor, unprotected, while next to it was a wire cage containing two other Winchesters. The cage of course meant that the bottles in it couldn't be toppled by accident. What did they contain? Distilled water.

Rolfe.

[LW]

Originally posted by Rolfe
What did they contain? Distilled water.

Hey, don't forget that water causes far more deaths each year than sulphuric acid.

[JamesM]

Originally posted by wayrad
edited to add: Chiral compounds? No kidding? Do the enantiomers smell different?:eek:
The famous example is limonene, one form of which smells of lemon, and the other of orange. That's the commonly-repeated story, anyway. I'm sure I read somewhere that this was a bit of an urban legend. There are opposite forms in the peels of the respective fruits, but I wonder if one molecule is responsible for the smell of lemons and oranges. But then I've never actually sniffed the enantiomers of limonene. Geni?

Another one is carvone: one form smells of caraway, the other of spearmint. Not that I've tested this, either.

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by LW
Hey, don't forget that water causes far more deaths each year than sulphuric acid. You know about Dihydrogen Monoxide (http://www.dhmo.org/), don't you?

Rolfe.

[Mr. Skinny]

For your amusement......my most interesting safety incident of the last year:

I came to work one morning and an acquaintance asked me if I had talked to our security person recently. When I inquired why, I was told "Dr. (X) found a bullet in the tail light of their car when they got home yesterday". I'm thinking they were involved in some sort of drive-by shooting, and still didn't understand why I should be concerned.

I went to see Dr. (X) and discovered that the "bullet" was a 23mm? (forget the size at the moment) armor piercing incendiary Soviet round that had escaped from the gun range down the hill from our lab.

Scary........

[Mr. Skinny]

Originally posted by Jon_in_london

(snip)
I dont wear goggles which may be silly.
(snip)
I keep my lunch in the fridge along with all the biochemica.
:p
Gaak:hit:

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by Mr. Skinny

Gaak:hit:

Hey, if it doesnt kill me it makes me stronger. (except polio, of course)

[wayrad]

Originally posted by Jon_in_london


Hey, if it doesnt kill me it makes me stronger. (except polio, of course) I can understand it if your lab is like mine. If I kept my lunch in the communal food fridge in my building it probably would kill me.

[Prester John]

Keeping your lunch with the samples is not a habit you pick up working in a bacteriology lab!
This thread reminds me too much of work, recent update of COSHH :(

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by Prester John
Keeping your lunch with the samples is not a habit you pick up working in a bacteriology lab!It is if you work in a biochemistry lab though. (Hangs head in shame....)

Real horror story warning. Once I'd been to the shop and bought some frozen food and there wasn't anywhere in a reasonable freezer to keep it till going-home time - so I sealed it in a few extra layers of plastic and shoved it in the freezer where they keep the post-mortemed bodies that might be required as evidence in legal cases (veterinary bodies, that is). I'm not proud of myself. (I'm not dead either, though.)

Rolfe.

[Mr. Skinny]

All of our refrigerators have to be marked "Food Only", or "Chemical Storage - No Food", or something similar.

I haven't found mixed storage in over 10 years, luckily.

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by Prester John
Keeping your lunch with the samples is not a habit you pick up working in a bacteriology lab!
This thread reminds me too much of work, recent update of COSHH :(

Oh, there will be hell to pay if anyone senior ever sees my lunch and can of coke in the fridge next to the ethidium bromide, E coli plates and P32. But since no-one senior ever does any lab work, Im pretty safe.

[Crossbow]

True enough!

People do get hurt and killed all the time doing things in an unsafe manner.

People drink, then drive cars.
People sky-dive without the proper equipment.
People ride motorcycles without helmets.
People work on live electrical lines without checking to see if the power is off or not.
etc.

Lab workers are no exception either!

[wayrad]

Originally posted by Mr. Skinny
I haven't found mixed storage in over 10 years, luckily. Having prepared for many a lab inspection, I am...biting my tongue. ;)

[cbish]

One thing with Safety showers and eye washes. How often do you actually run them? Ours are constantly being filled with sand, dirt, and etc. To test the shower, just put a big garabage can under it.

Jon in London wrote:
The problem with alcohol thermometers is that they easily get air bubbles in the alcohol column which means they are then effectively useless.

You can fix this! Carefully run the thermometer under a flame so that the alcohol goes all the way up. Allow to cool. All done!:D

We're being trained on Chemical Safety, disposal etc. after the first of the year.

[geni]

Originally posted by cbish
You can fix this! Carefully run the thermometer under a flame so that the alcohol goes all the way up. Allow to cool. All done!:D

You are heating a sealed tube in a flame. You clearly have stronger nerves than I do.

[cbish]

Just wave through a couple of times and watch it. Obviously it doesn't take long. I'm quite skilled.;)

For my next trick, I'm going to catch a fired bullet in my teeth!:D

[wayrad]

Originally posted by geni


You are heating a sealed tube in a flame. You clearly have stronger nerves than I do. I've fixed broken mercury columns in thermometers by putting them in an ice/salt mix to get the mercury down into the bulb. Wonder if it works with the alcohol jobs? I've never tried.

[Wyvern]

Originally posted by Mr. Skinny

Gaak:hit:
That goes double for me. Fifty lashes with a wet noodle for you, Jon in London.

Oh, and stuff it!
:D

I could tell you about a real doozy but, well, that wouldn't be right since it's in litigation. :p

Getting ill or injured is not fun at all - despite what a few people who are off on disability would have you believe. Weigh the risks. I would much rather take a few extra minutes of my day to take some simple precautions than to take a chance of having a mishap.

[Mr. Skinny]

Originally posted by Wyvern

That goes double for me. Fifty lashes with a wet noodle for you, Jon in London.

Oh, and stuff it!
:D

I could tell you about a real doozy but, well, that wouldn't be right since it's in litigation. :p

Getting ill or injured is not fun at all - despite what a few people who are off on disability would have you believe. Weigh the risks. I would much rather take a few extra minutes of my day to take some simple precautions than to take a chance of having a mishap.
Please come work at my lab Wyvern. I bow down before you.

[Skeptoid]

Originally posted by American
I don't work at all! They pay me to look like I'm working. It's the same thing, you figure out pretty quickly. Bare minimum performance, and you get paid the same as someone with words like "superior" on their yearly review.
I thought you said you broke your ass at work; performing the duties of pregnant women and women on maternity leave, wasn't it?

[Virgil]

A co worker of my forgot about heat of solvation and PV=nRT.

The safety shower was blocked because that is prime storage area.

The guy has been out of work for a calendar year. the MD won't let him come back until his skin closes up.

[Hamish]

During an experimental campaign a few years back, we started using a small bundle of radiochromic film pieces to capture a proton signal from a high powered laser experiment. After each laser shot, an experimenter would open up the film pack and look at the films. We got some very useful results.

Six months later, on a follow-up experiment we were told, before we started shooting the laser, that because we were creating proton beams, we ought to start checking things with a Geiger-Muller counter after each shot.

When we came to measure the activity of our film-pack, the GM counter went off the scale. After that we started putting it in a lead box for a couple of hours before anyone could touch it.

The radiation was predominantly alpha particles so we suspect no harm was done but I'm glad I was never the one in the previous experiment who opened the film pack!

[Shane Costello]

Anyone got a good centrifuge story? I've heard from people who knew people who worked somewhere else where someone didn't balance the centrifuge properly, and the thing ended up going at speed through a solid brick wall.

Originally posted by Crossbow:
People drink, then drive cars.
People sky-dive without the proper equipment.
People ride motorcycles without helmets.
People work on live electrical lines without checking to see if the power is off or not.
etc.

Lab workers are no exception either!

The difference being that with lab workers the negative results of risk taking mightn't be seen immediately. Silliness with carcinogens and mutagens would likely lead to cancer years or decades down the line (keep an eye on those gloveless Profs with their ethidium bromide).

Off the top of my head I can think of two possible martyrs to scientific research, Marie Curie to radium and Rosalind Franklin, the dark lady of DNA, to X-rays (apparently this is what caused her ovarian cancer). I wonder how many more there've been?

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by Shane Costello
Anyone got a good centrifuge story? I've heard from people who knew people who worked somewhere else where someone didn't balance the centrifuge properly, and the thing ended up going at speed through a solid brick wall.


Havent seen that, but I have seen a large Beckman walking across the floor and a very pale postgrad gawping at it.

Stupidest thing I have ever done with a centrifuge:

It was a bench top jobby for pulsing down 1ml microfuge tubes that had been knocked up in the departments maintainance dept. It was originally a coffee grinder!

You didnt have to have the lid closed for it to spin. I put my tubes in and with my fingers still holding the top of the tube I pressed the 'on' button......ouch! Tore my glove and was a bit sore but really hurt self esteem!

[wayrad]

Originally posted by Jon_in_london


Havent seen that, but I have seen a large Beckman walking across the floor and a very pale postgrad gawping at it.

Stupidest thing I have ever done with a centrifuge:

It was a bench top jobby for pulsing down 1ml microfuge tubes that had been knocked up in the departments maintainance dept. It was originally a coffee grinder!

You didnt have to have the lid closed for it to spin. I put my tubes in and with my fingers still holding the top of the tube I pressed the 'on' button......ouch! Tore my glove and was a bit sore but really hurt self esteem! Reminds me of my first lab job, longer ago than I care to remember. The prof and I were spinning something down in the teaching lab's horrible tabletop centrifuge; it had a poorly designed (or damaged, I don't remember) lid, which flew off in the middle of the run. Next thing I knew, I was UNDER the table with no clear recollection of how I had gotten there. I looked up, and there was my boss staring back at me from under the other side of the table. Whereupon we both went into fits of hysterical laughter. (I hope they retired that centrifuge, though.)

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by Shane Costello
Anyone got a good centrifuge story?Only the one I told on the previous page.I had a biochemistry technician who deliberately jemmied the safety catch of the centrifuge so she could reach in and stop the rotor with her hand. When I protested, she said "I don't have time to wait for it to stop by itself." We had to replace the whole damn machine.I can't say I've never stopped these things by hand myself though. There was a refrigerated centrifuge I used while I was doing my PhD work which had no lock. Even though someone stuck a cartoon on the wall above it, showing a technician being strangled by his tie caught in the works, I still meddled. Which is why you need the locks.

Rolfe.

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by Rolfe
Only the one I told on the previous page.I can't say I've never stopped these things by hand myself though. There was a refrigerated centrifuge I used while I was doing my PhD work which had no lock.

I would sometimes use a wad of tissue as brake on an old Sorvall with no lock. The tissue worked well because it didnt 'catch' like a hand or a glove would. The centrifuge had no brake and it look literally 30 minutes to come down from 14,000.

[Shane Costello]

Originally posted by Jon_in_london:
It was a bench top jobby for pulsing down 1ml microfuge tubes that had been knocked up in the departments maintainance dept. It was originally a coffee grinder!

Ways to Overcome Budget Cuts in R&D #1: Appoint Macgyver (sp?) to the maintainence department. :D

Working in meat research involves the use of very sharp knives with protective gear in the form of chainmail gloves. It goes without saying that these aren't worn with the regularity required, so cuts aren't uncommon.

The most hilarious mishap occured when one girl managed to cut her finger while slicing some meat. Being of a highly squemish nature (her work was with burgers so she never had to set foot in or anyway near an abattoir) she promptly fainted. As it happened the other girl in the lab at the time (whose research was on the composition of frankfurters, making another production line virgin) got such a shock at seeing her companion lose consciousness that she too ended up out cold on the floor. Luckily they were discovered by a battle hardened veteran of on-site sampling! :roll: