If you're an avid horror movie watcher, it's likely that you have seen at least one horror film that's somehow related to catastrophes in a laboratory. And while usually these movies are rather dramatized, the inspiration behind them still comes from real life.
We're not saying that lab disasters are happening around every corner. What we are saying is that there are enough instances of them nearly happening to make a full-blown list that we're sharing with you today. So, let's jump in to read about incidents that could've ended our world or at least someone's life.
#1
A girl in my lab forgot to turn the blower on in the hood and inhaled a small amount of an e. coli toxin we were supposed to put in solution. didn't feel well, went to the ER, got pneumonia, then got an intestinal infection. her mom had to fly to the east cost from california to take care of her when she couldn't leave her apartment for two weeks. it's a month later and she still hasn't fully recovered.
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28points
#2
Grad student left a hot plate on, burned down his/her advisors' lab, entire floor of the building destroyed by smoke and water damage. Nobody k***d but the advisor's rare collection of butterfly wings went up in. smoke - he'd been studying evolution of butterflies and had to abandon that. Took about a year to rebuild everything and get back on track.
That was 20 years ago and I still have a big sign in the lab where people will see it when they leave: "IS THE HOTPLATE OFF?"
edit: forgot to mention severe water damage in the entire rest of the building. The affected lab was on the top floor so the whole department was pretty much flooded. We were all shut down for a while. I ended up staying in grad school another year because of all the delays getting the labs up and running again.
That was 20 years ago and I still have a big sign in the lab where people will see it when they leave: "IS THE HOTPLATE OFF?"
edit: forgot to mention severe water damage in the entire rest of the building. The affected lab was on the top floor so the whole department was pretty much flooded. We were all shut down for a while. I ended up staying in grad school another year because of all the delays getting the labs up and running again.
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28points
#3
A (really dumb) postdoc in my previous lab placed an unrinsed bottle in the bleach bath to be picked up by the glassware folks. She didn't sink it; just left it floating. When the glassware guy got up there, he sank it to rinse/clean it. Too bad the bottle had a bit of HCl in there, and created chlorine gas when he sank it into the bleach water. A staff scientist found him passed out next to the sink. EDIT: because a couple people have asked, no, he didn't die. A visit to campus medical, I'm sure, but those facilities folks are made of stronger stuff than I am.
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24points
Every job comes with its perks, flaws, and dangers. Granted, some jobs barely have any dangers – for example, doing an office job isn’t nearly as dangerous as, let’s say, gas mining. Okay, that’s a pretty extreme example, but still a fitting one. After all, mining is, in fact, considered one of the most dangerous jobs in the world.
The mentioned list of dangerous occupations also includes professions like firefighting, agriculture, roofing, and logging, to name a few. Of course, it doesn’t mean that the danger is limited to only these professions – as we said before, any job can be dangerous.
#4
I spilled a load of 35% NaOH solution over myself. Burned right through my coat, overalls and pants. Quickly pulled down my pants, and ran half naked to the showers. The pain and humiliation... I've never been more angry with myself.
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24points
#5
I was an undergrad, getting some experience in a mosquito genetics lab. I heeded my copious amounts of safety and PPE training, and always made sure to wear pants, close-toed shoes, gloves, and goggles. However, contrary to what my professors had always told me, absolutely nobody else gave a s**t about wearing PPE. After a decent while of being teased by my supervisors and fellow undergrads, I decided to cast off my previous training, and wear shorts and sandals.
On that very day, we were moving some (glass) mosquito cages around the lab. The bottom fell out, shattering not only glass, but also a swarm of live mosquitoes all over the floor. And my feet.
I wear PPE again now.
On that very day, we were moving some (glass) mosquito cages around the lab. The bottom fell out, shattering not only glass, but also a swarm of live mosquitoes all over the floor. And my feet.
I wear PPE again now.
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23points
#6
I'm a lab manager, where do I begin?
The worst one I have seen is when someone placed a vial of some HCl on a top shelf then threw a giant funnel up there as well, you know, for fun. Of course the funnel rolled around, hit the bottle of HCl and came crashing down on one of my co-workers. She handled it with grace, ran into the shower immediately and I got to go on a shopping trip and buy her some new clothes.
Also saw some get hit in the eye with [chemicals] and mouse guts at the same time. They did not handle it with grace.
Just last week someone set a beaker of ethanol on fire and just stared at it unsure of what to do. Thankfully I was right there and moved the even bigger beaker of ethanol out of the way before it caught on fire.
The worst one I have seen is when someone placed a vial of some HCl on a top shelf then threw a giant funnel up there as well, you know, for fun. Of course the funnel rolled around, hit the bottle of HCl and came crashing down on one of my co-workers. She handled it with grace, ran into the shower immediately and I got to go on a shopping trip and buy her some new clothes.
Also saw some get hit in the eye with [chemicals] and mouse guts at the same time. They did not handle it with grace.
Just last week someone set a beaker of ethanol on fire and just stared at it unsure of what to do. Thankfully I was right there and moved the even bigger beaker of ethanol out of the way before it caught on fire.
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22points
Let’s take science work, for example. To be more specific, the scientific work that typically takes place in a laboratory. The profession isn’t on the top 10 most dangerous occupations list, but people working in it face quite a lot of dangers in their day-to-day life.
Granted, in order to work there, you have to pass various training sessions. Not everyone right off the street can become a lab worker, but even the best results in training do not guarantee that there won’t be any incidents.
#7
Undergrad accidentally pricked himself with a syringe full of mouse breast cancers cells. He was convinced he was going to die for weeks. He lived.
21points
#8
Previous Post Doc in my lab had a bad habit of touching/pushing hair away from her face whilst wearing gloves. She continued this habit whilst making her own poly acrylamide gels for protein seperation. Only figured out it was very bad when her hair started to fall out in a very specific spot on her head.
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21points
#9
I am a Nuclear Engineer, and typically work in and around the control rooms.
Avoiding catastrophes is our business, so thankfully nothing went fatally wrong, but the most hair-raising event went as follows.
Avoiding catastrophes is our business, so thankfully nothing went fatally wrong, but the most hair-raising event went as follows.
Bad storms were playing havok with the network, and we had been warned we might lose our connection. We were making all the preparations we could, but some systems were out for maintenance, so we expected trouble.
In the early hours of the morning, the worst happened and a tree fell on the power line, cutting us off and tripping our main transformer. The system starts running down, and it looks like everything is safe.
Some of the most essential systems are supported by a no-break electrical system, using batteries to keep them propped up when we are in transitional situations. One of the transformers that supported this was out for work. Unfortunately, in the chaos the other transformer exploded.
The no-break supplies came to the rescue, but one of the motor-alternator sets didn't start, so the board couldn't power up properly. We had lost supplies to the seal oil system.
The seal oil system maintains the seals around the generator, which is filled with hydrogen for maximum heat conduction. We've lost the system, and the generator is spinning down, so we had just a few minutes until gas started leaking, and a fire or explosion started. If anyone hasn't seen a turbine/generator explosion, imagine 500 tonnes of steel shrapnel flying for a couple of miles in every direction.
The control room was pretty much useless at that point. The reactor was safe, manages by automatic protection systems, and displays were clogged up with over 72,000 unique alarms. The only thing to do do was throw on a helmet and run towards the potential turbine death-trap.
Once we arrived, we had to purge the generator with CO2 as fast as we could to block the explosion. If we had been even a few minutes later, we could have easily been disintegrated in the fireball, and half the building levelled from the worlds largest shotgun. At the time it didn't scare me, but once I got home it took the better part of a bottle of whiskey to get to sleep.
TL;DR - i rode a nuclear shotgun to hell and back. Whiskey was involved.
19points
In fact, there’s even a whole Wikipedia page dedicated to laboratory incidents, more specifically biosecurity ones. It includes recorded events of accidental laboratory releases of lethal pathogens, containment failures, exposure to personnel, improper disposal, and the escape of laboratory animals.
The list starts with the first incident from 1903, when a laboratory worker in the United States became infected with the bacteria Burkholderia mallei and developed glanders due to an autopsy they performed on a guinea pig. Luckily, they survived, so the incident didn’t have any casualties.
#10
Sophomore year of my chemistry degree, and I was in organic chemistry. We were doing a semester long synthesis experiment, and had just started the process. Part of it was melting sodium down and swirling it in ethanol to add a particular group onto the sodium. Directly prior to that, we had used glacial acetic acid for something or other. Well, not all of the acid had been reacted before we added the sodium. Now I don't know if you know this, but elemental sodium is highly reactive. I was gently swirling the flask with the ethanol and sodium, and some of the sodium bits went up the side of the glass wall and found some acetic acid. Sodium in water makes a loud pop. Sodium in hot water makes a louder pop. Sodium in acid goes boom. Sodium in glacial acetic acid is downright explosive. There was a tremendous boom, a six inch flame shot out of the mouth of the flask, and I almost had a heart attack. The professor supervising the lab looked up in mild surprise (he was very old and probably almost deaf; he retired that year), and the professor in the lab next door came running to see what was going on. I was very lucky. If more sodium had reacted, or if there was more acid, the flask probably would have shattered and I would have injured my hand. As it was, nothing really came off it and we went on with our experiment. We eventually succeeded in synthesizing ethyl cinnamate.
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18points
#11
We do a lot of fieldwork in my lab, all by SCUBA. I've had labmates lost at sea (we found them after a few hours), threatened by aggressive sharks, our boat almost capsized during a storm, couple broken bones and injuries. Once another boat almost dropped an anchor on my dive buddy, if it had hit him I wouldn't have known until it was too late. Science can be dangerous.
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17points
#12
Not my lab, but a graduate student in an adjacent lab needed to sterilize cultures of anaerobic *Clostridium*.
Rather than simply bleaching the culture and leaving it in the fume hood like you were supposed to they opted to autoclave the live culture.
For those who don't know what anaerobic bacteria smell like, imagine smelling someone else's liquid s**t thats been incubating in a hot, stale room for a couple days, that's about it. Bleaching a live culture and then leaving it in a fume hood essentially k**ls the culture slowly and then the fume hood exhausts the nasty smells outside. Autoclaving will k**l your culture but does not exhaust any of the smells and instead aerosolizes it to share its lovely goodness with everyone.
So this grad student, in their mistake, caused an entire floor of microbiologists to evacuate the building because the smell was so horrendous that they couldn't work without gagging. The autoclave was also out of commission for a couple days to ensure decontamination of the unit and inlet/outlet pipes. I felt for that poor autoclave tech who was tasked with that job.
Rather than simply bleaching the culture and leaving it in the fume hood like you were supposed to they opted to autoclave the live culture.
For those who don't know what anaerobic bacteria smell like, imagine smelling someone else's liquid s**t thats been incubating in a hot, stale room for a couple days, that's about it. Bleaching a live culture and then leaving it in a fume hood essentially k**ls the culture slowly and then the fume hood exhausts the nasty smells outside. Autoclaving will k**l your culture but does not exhaust any of the smells and instead aerosolizes it to share its lovely goodness with everyone.
So this grad student, in their mistake, caused an entire floor of microbiologists to evacuate the building because the smell was so horrendous that they couldn't work without gagging. The autoclave was also out of commission for a couple days to ensure decontamination of the unit and inlet/outlet pipes. I felt for that poor autoclave tech who was tasked with that job.
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16points
Throughout the years since this first recorded incident, many others have taken place. Like a doctoral student getting infected with SARS from the compromised safety practices of the Department of Pathology in Singapore in 2003.
Or the United Kingdom’s Animal and Plant Health Agency sending out live samples of anthrax by mistake in 2012. Essentially, there have been a lot of recorded instances that prove our point about working in science labs being dangerous.
#13
3rd Year Chemistry student chucked a lump of sodium in the aqueous waste (chemicals dissolved in water that can't go down the sink) by mistake. Blew the container apart, and ignited at least one of the more flammable waste containers it was next to, which blew the fume cupboard apart and a hole in the wall.
After that everyone in the university had to fill in a full COSHH assessment for every single lab, no matter what it involved.
After that everyone in the university had to fill in a full COSHH assessment for every single lab, no matter what it involved.
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14points
#14
I'm not quite a scientist, but this is lab related.
I was on a team building a BSL4 lab. I couldn't even tell you what all the scientist were going to do inside the lab, but BSL4 is the highest level of containment. Anyone going in had to have on a full containment suit.
Well, it's getting near to the end of the project, and since the lab is not yet occupied nor has any hazardous agents in it yet, personnel is walking through without any protective gear on. On the exit to this lab, there is a large washdown station. Basically, the doors close, and everyone gets hosed down with something like bleach to ensure nothing gets out of the lab. The team in charge of that station was preparing to test it when another team walking the lab tried to leave. They get stuck in the washdown, and sprayed for nearly a minute, screaming in horror the entire time. Luckily, the system was only filled with water, but the people inside didn't know that at the time.
I was on a team building a BSL4 lab. I couldn't even tell you what all the scientist were going to do inside the lab, but BSL4 is the highest level of containment. Anyone going in had to have on a full containment suit.
Well, it's getting near to the end of the project, and since the lab is not yet occupied nor has any hazardous agents in it yet, personnel is walking through without any protective gear on. On the exit to this lab, there is a large washdown station. Basically, the doors close, and everyone gets hosed down with something like bleach to ensure nothing gets out of the lab. The team in charge of that station was preparing to test it when another team walking the lab tried to leave. They get stuck in the washdown, and sprayed for nearly a minute, screaming in horror the entire time. Luckily, the system was only filled with water, but the people inside didn't know that at the time.
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14points
#15
Throwaway... because of what happened. This happened around maybe 3 years ago while I was a contractor temp scientist.
So I was preparing a 300L batch of cell culture media and I added the wrong solution at the end. I was suppose to add a manganese based chemical and added a magnesium based chemical by accident. All the medium was to be used for a high visibility and quality study. Also, some of this medium was given to cell molecular biology so they also had to repeat experiments there. My senior scientist at the time caught my error from comparing batch and lot numbers of chemicals I was using maybe 2 weeks after our experiment was finished. Mind you these experiments take 4-6 weeks to fully complete. Even if my senior scientist did not see the error, we saw the untypical results from analytical studies another department perform.
Because of this, we had to redo the entire experiment and I had to create a plan to get this experiment fully grown and finished within 2-4 weeks rather than 4-6 weeks since the timeline was already delayed due to my error. Mind you, with all the operations costs, labor, and amount of consumables, repeating this experiment probably cost over $150,000 to do. All this because I added the wrong chemical (and mind you, this is just < 1mL that was to be added in a 300 LITER solution).
I owned up to it, admitted my mistake, busted my a*s and plowed through it. I shall NEVER make that mistake ever again I triple check and always second guess myself when I make these solutions. My manager at the time was very upset with me, but appreciated how I handled myself in handling the whole situation, since I volunteered to repeat the experiment all by myself without my senior scientist's assistance (she of course just double checked my documentation). In the end, she did cover for me and admit fault, which is something she did not have to do and to this day and give her my utmost respect for doing that. Two months later, I interviewed for a full-time position in the group and got it, and since then I've been promoted twice and have since transferred to another group that caters to my overall skill set.
TLDR: Added the wrong chemical to a 300L solution that compromised an experiment and wasted $150,000 of company money.
Edited: for spelling errors.
So I was preparing a 300L batch of cell culture media and I added the wrong solution at the end. I was suppose to add a manganese based chemical and added a magnesium based chemical by accident. All the medium was to be used for a high visibility and quality study. Also, some of this medium was given to cell molecular biology so they also had to repeat experiments there. My senior scientist at the time caught my error from comparing batch and lot numbers of chemicals I was using maybe 2 weeks after our experiment was finished. Mind you these experiments take 4-6 weeks to fully complete. Even if my senior scientist did not see the error, we saw the untypical results from analytical studies another department perform.
Because of this, we had to redo the entire experiment and I had to create a plan to get this experiment fully grown and finished within 2-4 weeks rather than 4-6 weeks since the timeline was already delayed due to my error. Mind you, with all the operations costs, labor, and amount of consumables, repeating this experiment probably cost over $150,000 to do. All this because I added the wrong chemical (and mind you, this is just < 1mL that was to be added in a 300 LITER solution).
I owned up to it, admitted my mistake, busted my a*s and plowed through it. I shall NEVER make that mistake ever again I triple check and always second guess myself when I make these solutions. My manager at the time was very upset with me, but appreciated how I handled myself in handling the whole situation, since I volunteered to repeat the experiment all by myself without my senior scientist's assistance (she of course just double checked my documentation). In the end, she did cover for me and admit fault, which is something she did not have to do and to this day and give her my utmost respect for doing that. Two months later, I interviewed for a full-time position in the group and got it, and since then I've been promoted twice and have since transferred to another group that caters to my overall skill set.
TLDR: Added the wrong chemical to a 300L solution that compromised an experiment and wasted $150,000 of company money.
Edited: for spelling errors.
13points
To make our point even stronger, we also coordinated our own list. It’s made up of scientists’ stories about catastrophes that nearly happened in their labs. So, it’s kind of a little different spin from Wikipedia one, as it includes stuff that could’ve ended up there, but didn’t.
Still, doesn’t mean they are not entertaining to read about – they are. And to be honest, they’re kind of terrifying as well – just imagining what could’ve happened can send shivers down your spine. If it does, make sure to leave an upvote! And if you have any similar tales, don’t shy away from sharing them with us!
#16
Various stories from around the lab:
- Coworker accidently spilled a mercaptan in a hood. Being a s****y old building, the entire building filled up with the smell and had to be evacuated for the day.
-Mouth pipetting by experienced techs- organic solvents of all things. We had the proper equipment, they were just too lazy to get it.
-There was a communication issue, and someone threw out about $20,000 worth of samples.
-Many years before my time, it was accepted practice to heat your lunch in the GC oven. Or to even make french toast. Guess the ovens were so precise temperature-wise it made awesome food.
- Coworker accidently spilled a mercaptan in a hood. Being a s****y old building, the entire building filled up with the smell and had to be evacuated for the day.
-Mouth pipetting by experienced techs- organic solvents of all things. We had the proper equipment, they were just too lazy to get it.
-There was a communication issue, and someone threw out about $20,000 worth of samples.
-Many years before my time, it was accepted practice to heat your lunch in the GC oven. Or to even make french toast. Guess the ovens were so precise temperature-wise it made awesome food.
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13points
#17
I had a large washing machine sized centrifuge explode. Imagine it sounded like an [explosive] because I had tinnitus for a couple of days afterwards. That was two years ago and I am still wary of centrifuges.
Edit:spelling.
Edit:spelling.
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13points
#18
Ph.D. student didn't have any pipette bulbs so he s***d the chloroform into the pipette with his mouth... For months until someone saw it.
edit: Another student was sitting for hours next to open bottles of chloroform, ethanol and other chemicals and was complaining about headaches.
edit: Another student was sitting for hours next to open bottles of chloroform, ethanol and other chemicals and was complaining about headaches.
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12points
#19
I accidentally prepared a rat mesanteric arteriole for the wrong experiment. For the cost of the rat and materials I wasted: $1200
Don't go to labs on Percocet after getting your wisdom teeth out.
Don't go to labs on Percocet after getting your wisdom teeth out.
12points
#20
Spent 6 years getting a masters and a PhD. I saw some things...
During my masters work we had this completely incompetent person in a lab that shared offices with our lab. She was getting her PhD in material science but did not understand ANYTHING. She had to be walked through how to save files on the computer, what chemical to use, how to not mix certain chemicals, etc. To make things worse, she had this s**t head friend that always hung around with her who would tell her all the wrong things.
Well one day she wanted to clean some crucibles and s**t head told her to use acetic acid, since you know, it's in vinegar so it can't be that strong... Our offices were in a larger lab (read cubicles in a corner of a chem lab... not so safe) so we heard her go to the sink run some water and then we begin to get this extremely strong acid smell. Like burns your nose strong. We all look around and walk out to the sink and she has poured a large volume of concentrated acetic acid into her crucible and is attempting to wash it with paper towels, which are melting into her nitrile gloved hand. She has tears pouring out of her eyes and the smell near the sink is an incredibly strong putrid acid smell.
Of course we pull her out of there and ask her what the hell she was doing. She just says s**t head told her she could do it because it was just vinegar acid. She still got her PhD and I lost faith in humanity and my department. I ended up changing schools after I got a masters.
In my PhD lab, I saw a girl get a needle stick while injecting mice with an extremely aggressive form of glow in the dark human breast cancer cells. She went to the doc and they told her that she was fine because the cells would most likely die due to immune reaction. I was still pretty freaked out.
In our lab we also had a jar of [chemical waste] go off like and IED. Apparently when pouring out the waste from fixing samples, someone poured waste that had catalyst in it. One of our grad students felt the bottle when pouring waste in it and it felt really hot. They tried to put it in the sink and run cold water on it. As they walked out of the lab the bottle exploded sending [chemical waste] and glass shards all over the thankfully empty lab. We began to add inhibitor to all our methacrylate waste bottles from that point forward.
tl;dr: Labs are only as safe as the least safe person working in them.
During my masters work we had this completely incompetent person in a lab that shared offices with our lab. She was getting her PhD in material science but did not understand ANYTHING. She had to be walked through how to save files on the computer, what chemical to use, how to not mix certain chemicals, etc. To make things worse, she had this s**t head friend that always hung around with her who would tell her all the wrong things.
Well one day she wanted to clean some crucibles and s**t head told her to use acetic acid, since you know, it's in vinegar so it can't be that strong... Our offices were in a larger lab (read cubicles in a corner of a chem lab... not so safe) so we heard her go to the sink run some water and then we begin to get this extremely strong acid smell. Like burns your nose strong. We all look around and walk out to the sink and she has poured a large volume of concentrated acetic acid into her crucible and is attempting to wash it with paper towels, which are melting into her nitrile gloved hand. She has tears pouring out of her eyes and the smell near the sink is an incredibly strong putrid acid smell.
Of course we pull her out of there and ask her what the hell she was doing. She just says s**t head told her she could do it because it was just vinegar acid. She still got her PhD and I lost faith in humanity and my department. I ended up changing schools after I got a masters.
In my PhD lab, I saw a girl get a needle stick while injecting mice with an extremely aggressive form of glow in the dark human breast cancer cells. She went to the doc and they told her that she was fine because the cells would most likely die due to immune reaction. I was still pretty freaked out.
In our lab we also had a jar of [chemical waste] go off like and IED. Apparently when pouring out the waste from fixing samples, someone poured waste that had catalyst in it. One of our grad students felt the bottle when pouring waste in it and it felt really hot. They tried to put it in the sink and run cold water on it. As they walked out of the lab the bottle exploded sending [chemical waste] and glass shards all over the thankfully empty lab. We began to add inhibitor to all our methacrylate waste bottles from that point forward.
tl;dr: Labs are only as safe as the least safe person working in them.
11points