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Asked by ellencole to Francesca, Laura, Matthew, Andrew, Rebecca on 16 Nov 2014. This question was also asked by chloemorris, E_kelleher.
Question: Have you ever been injured whilst doing science?
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Matthew Camilleri answered on 16 Nov 2014:
I feel like I should lie and say no for this question, but the reality is yes, plenty of time. I’ve only ever needed to go to ‘hospital’ twice though, once with a burnt hand and another time with an allergic reaction with a chemical I was using.
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Laura Schofield answered on 17 Nov 2014:
I work a lot with tools to fix the rig (made of steel tubes and pipes) and have slipped and put a file through my finger before. And I once slipped with a saw and cut a chunk out of my hand. Oh and I have smashed a small glass bottle into my hand and had to pull out the bit of glass that was in there. Nothing serious though and I’ve never been to hospital (not yet anyway!) Most of my injuries happen because I am really clumsy!
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Rebecca Ingle answered on 17 Nov 2014:
I’ve been pretty lucky injury-wise so far, I’ve caught my hand in the laser beam a few times which stings a bit and leaves a red mark but isn’t too bad.
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Andrew McKinley answered on 17 Nov 2014:
Yes… Cut by glass, stuck with a needle, ‘sunburn’ from a UV lamp, dropped a box on my foot, burnt with a laser, burnt by a hot-plate, burnt by acid….
All were comparitively minor! I should say at this point that through our work we always do a rigorous risk assessment – looking at what might go wrong and taking steps to minimise the risk – e.g. can we do this another way that is safer, if we can’t, how do we make sure it doesn’t happen etc. When we do get hurt it is usually because either 1) we did not follow our risk assessment rigorously enough, or 2) we did not correctly anticipate the difficulty in procedure, or 3) (the most common) complete and utter stupidity!
As chemists we are, as a profession, much better at assessing risk, largely because we work with risk every day. Our first year undergraduates have to do their own risk assessments from day one – we don’t shy away from risky procedures – we teach our students to respect them and to carry them out safely. If you have to work with hydrogen fluoride (seriously nasty!), then nothing else will do, so you’d better learn to handle it right.
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