Laboratory Accidents

Just thought I'd start a light hearted thread for a bit of comic relief! Post the funniest/most horrific lab based accidents you or your colleagues have suffered :biggrin:

The worst personal accident I had was reacting some expired surfasil (dichlorooctamethyltetrasiloxane), a gas siliconising agent, for disposal. I followed the supplied MSDS to the letter, I put it in a large beaker inside a larger beaker containing lots of ice, inside the fume hood. I chucked in a whole load of methanol, set the mag stirrer going and pulled the sash down, leaving it to get on with it. After about 20 minutes, all effervescence had ceased, and I removed the vessel from the fume hood. The second I did so, it suddenly started bubbling again, I noticed all the ice had melted and I got a face, lung, nose and eye full of partially broken down siloxanes and a large volume of hydrogen chloride gas. Crap. Ouchies. Lab eye wash station for 15 minutes, transfered to emergency department of local hospital, anaesthetised eye and saline washout, then some very thorough checks involving fluorescent orange stains, then discharged with another incident report to wear like a badge of honour :biggrin:

Worst near miss I've had was fainting in the lab holding a litre bottle of 99.999% formic acid with the cap off >_< Thankfully I fell one way and the bottle rolled and spilled the other! When I came to, my eyes were stinging due to the vapour, I managed to stagger to my feet and cover the puddle in vermiculite before calling for help. :woo:

The best incident story comes from one of the technicians at my old school. One of the teachers requested a litre of chlorine gas in a gas jar for a displacement experiment. The technician only had a recipe for 10 litres and it didn't occur to him simply divide by 10, so he brought the teacher 10 litres in 10 gas jars. The teacher asked him to dispose of the remaining 9 in their fume hood, which he did, but he carelessly forgot to turn the extractor on, so the 9 litres of chlorine gas just filled up the one meter cubed space inside the cabinet. When the techy came to retrieve the gas jars, he pulled the sash open and stuck his head in, then promptly collapsed choking! Luckily someone found him immediately and he got bluelighted to hospital!

Reply 20

Revd. Mike

OP

17

dream123

I didnt realise 'horrific' and 'suffering' could be used in the same sentence as 'funniest'. :erm:

They become interchangeable when talking about chemistry accidents :wink:

Not that funny, but the other day at work I bent down and my favourite sigma aldrich pen and my best pair of tweezers fell out of my lab coat's breast pocket, right into a radioactive waste sump :frown:

Needless to say I didn't keep them after retrieving them.

Reply 21

sulpicia

Blowing up a capacitor in A level physics - fun

Reply 22

AWSLC

14

I remember in year 13 Chemistry, our Chemistry teacher was demonstrating reaction of Group 1 Metals with Water.

He got everything prepared, had all 4 chemicals lined up (Lithium, Sodium, Potassium, and Rubidium [which was the furthest we were allowed to go to in A levels :rolleyes:

])

So my teacher filled the container up - everything was fine for the first three chemicals. We came to Rubidium...

At the front desk, we saw him cut a piece off, me and a couple of others said to him "Sir, is that piece a bit big for the size of that container?" to which he said "I've done it like this countless times, just remember who the teacher is" - Fair enough.

So he throws this piece of Rubidium into the water, and watches, then all you hear is a couple of cracks, and the base of the container just blows outwards, followed by litres and litres of water.

I don't think i've ever laughed so hard, just at the look on the teachers face, it was made even more funny by the series of sparks coming from his laptop :yep:

Good times, good times. :smile:

Reply 23

Revd. Mike

OP

17

sulpicia

Blowing up a capacitor in A level physics - fun

This seems to be quite a common one hehe!

Someone I knew in 6th form was absolutely crap at practicals, never listened to what the teacher was saying or anything. She kept charging up her capacitor, ignoring the teacher who said that's probably enough... and then was surprised when it blew up in her face, covering her in a fine layer of oil :rofl:

I was quite annoyed a couple of weeks ago when a scientist was attempting to dismantle a vaccuum pump whilst it was operating, resulting in a spray of silicone oil covering my hair and lab coat :frown:

Reply 24

Reply 25

Revd. Mike

They become interchangeable when talking about chemistry accidents :wink:

When people go to hospital it isn't.
When one of your first signs somethings happened is hearing a huge bang then a minute later seeing water with a tint of red pouring outside from the foor aboves emergancy shower, its really not funny...

Reply 26

woofums

13

In year 10 someone poured acid (cant remeber what) All over my hand. It was an accident. I was in agony and my teacher said 'run it under cold water' i was there for 10 mins doing that and my whole hand was all blistered. She panicked when she saw it, i think she thought i was joking. I had to go to hospital

Reply 27

whitepearlbaby

18

woofums

In year 10 someone poured acid (cant remeber what) All over my hand. It was an accident. I was in agony and my teacher said 'run it under cold water' i was there for 10 mins doing that and my whole hand was all blistered. She panicked when she saw it, i think she thought i was joking. I had to go to hospital

Hmm the same happened to me with hydrochloric acid but the concentration was low so my hand only tickled like after touching a stinging nettle :biggrin:

Reply 28

munro90

12

we came pretty close to immolation in about year 8 when a teacher was using a bunsen burner that was resting against its gas lead an slowly melting through it- luckily an eagle eyed classmate spotted it in time.

other than that it was just directly lighting the hydrogen given off some experiment in sixth form in the conical flask causing the flask to blow up rather than collecting it under water and burning it gradually

Reply 29

Revd. Mike

OP

17

Quady

When people go to hospital it isn't.
When one of your first signs somethings happened is hearing a huge bang then a minute later seeing water with a tint of red pouring outside from the foor aboves emergancy shower, its really not funny...

Hey, I've hospitalized myself with a lab accident before too. I'm just being light hearted about it all, I'm not so sadistic that I take actual pleasure in people's pain. I mean my accident that could potentiall have left me blind and suffering from a pulmonary oedema was anything but funny at the time, but I laugh about it now!

Reply 30

Stony Steve Lemon

Nothing too serious has ever happened to me. Someone spilt a bottle of lime water all over my crotch when I was in Year 8, and in Year 12 I burnt holes in 2 pairs of jeans in consecutive practicals with nitric acid, but that's about it. I must be due for a big one soon.

Reply 31

deadgenius

2

Do non-accidental "accidents" count? Cos I got a few... start off with basics - pouring sodium down the sink and watching lots and lots of fizzing and bubbling come back up the sink. Letting the gas tap blow out a bit of gas for about ten seconds then light it with the Bunsen burner (that was fun to watch). Scratching the tips off matches, make a long line then light one end and watch it burn. (I would just like to add that none of these were me doing them... except the last one)

But the best one actually was an accident - my teacher was showing off doing this really fancy reaction (I can't remember what) that made quite a large purple flame. Anyway, he got a bit carried away, and this time the flame was so big, it set the polystyrene ceilig tiles on fire and the whole school was evacuated. No one was alowed in that room for three days lol.

Reply 32

Revd. Mike

OP

17

One quite shocking one from the archives of the non-injury incident report system at work:

Someone was cutting up plastic sheets used to prep samples for NMR on, using a pair of scissors. They then picked up the stack of plastic sheets and took them into the NMR room, unaware of the fact that they'd left the scissors in the stack of sheets. There was a tremendous bang, and they were shocked to discover the scissors had flown across the room and embedded themselves into the electromagnet! :eek:

Reply 33

Courtenayyy

7

Nothing too serious for me :smile:

lol
I just spilled concentrated sulphuric acid on my hand, I didn't even realsied til it started to blister and itch. Then it became really painful and I had to wash it whilst the teacher ran for the lab technician to make up an alkaline solution to attempt to neautralise my hand :frown:

I had to soak it in alkali for agesssss lol.

My teacher last year was prodding something in a beaker with a glass rod, when the glass rod shattered and it went straight through his finger (puke) !. Blood went everywhere....and I mean everywhere. He had to go to hopital for stitches and injections etc. Apparently the glass rod narrowly missed his tendon, which could have been very serious.

Reply 34

Revd. Mike

OP

17

Glassware injuries are shockingly common, especially bloody glass pipettes! (The really fine glass pasteur pipettes are the worst)
The number of stories I've heard about people putting them through their hands is horrific. That or shattering them and slashing their thumbs whilst trying to insert or remove them from tubing or fillers. I have to use them every morning, and I constantly wince whilst using them!

Reply 35

Loonylottie

1

A boy in my class thought it would be really funny to pour so sort of chemical on someone else's head. This person realized and started running round the room flapping and hyperventilating thinking he was going to die or get some terrible disease when the teacher was like, it's not hazardous. And he was just like oh.....*exhales heavily* it was soooooo funny

Reply 36

amongsttheweeds

18

Not really an accident I suppose, but I've heard stories of a guy who was doing an ash, connected the bunsen to the nitrogen line, and went through several boxes of matches trying to get it to light. :p:

There was also one which involved somebody extinguishing a distillation kit which had set fire; unfortunately the CO2 which the techie was using created a cloud of static discharge which travelled along the stainless steel bench and directly onto his nads.

Reply 37

lozzyhickers

17

Someone in my GCSE class dropped a bunsen burner, while it was still alight!
He was then banned from practicals...

Reply 38

mczakk

1

i was working in the lab one night.....
lol

i was working at an r&d company, developing a version of that spray on plaster tat youcan now buy, its basically spray on superglue, and i had a screw top aerosol container full of a development batch.

and yes, i took the lid off, not realising that it was pressurised.

the hospital said all i could really do was carry on wearing my safety glasses until they came off naturally!

got a few funny looks in town for a few days!

Reply 39

kerily

15

Original post by Fandellos

(this story isnt strictly chemistry but involves chemicals)

my dad and his friend were doing engineering at uni, and they were in lab doing some experiment or other.
the friend leaned back on a table, and put his hands up on it to support his weight, etc.

what he didnt realise was that he had also put his hand in a small puddle of cyanide, which he didnt notice, and as you might expect, it got abosrbed up into him.

he died a few hours later.

I read through that expecting to be able to laugh at the end, and then I felt awful :unsure:

Laboratory Accidents

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