Sounds nasty! I notice a startling lack of detail, which is consistent with the university's fear of legal action until they figure out what the hell happened.
The worst story I've ever heard is a girl who managed to kill herself by getting set on fire with t-butyl lithium (http://cenblog.org/the-safety-zone/2011/12/uc-patrick-harran-face-criminal-charges-in-death-of-sheri-sangji/). She was clearly at fault, considering that she was handling a chemical known to blow up if you look at it the wrong way (http://www.yale.edu/ehs/reactives.htm) without wearing a lab coat. But how much was she to blame, and how much was lack of training, lack of supervision, or other institutional fail? The legal case has been rumbling on for a couple of years (http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2012/08/01/the_sangjiuclaharran_case_now_officially_a_mess.php) now.
The scariest things I am using are pyridine (http://fscimage.fishersci.com/msds/19990.htm) (not very scary - wear gloves & use in the fume cupboard) and boron trifluoride (absolutely hideous: toxic, corrosive, flammable, you name it - so I'm using the type dissolved in diethyl ether (http://fscimage.fishersci.com/msds/18827.htm)). Yay.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2012-09-18 07:45 pm (UTC)The worst story I've ever heard is a girl who managed to kill herself by getting set on fire with t-butyl lithium (http://cenblog.org/the-safety-zone/2011/12/uc-patrick-harran-face-criminal-charges-in-death-of-sheri-sangji/). She was clearly at fault, considering that she was handling a chemical known to blow up if you look at it the wrong way (http://www.yale.edu/ehs/reactives.htm) without wearing a lab coat. But how much was she to blame, and how much was lack of training, lack of supervision, or other institutional fail? The legal case has been rumbling on for a couple of years (http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2012/08/01/the_sangjiuclaharran_case_now_officially_a_mess.php) now.
The scariest things I am using are pyridine (http://fscimage.fishersci.com/msds/19990.htm) (not very scary - wear gloves & use in the fume cupboard) and boron trifluoride (absolutely hideous: toxic, corrosive, flammable, you name it - so I'm using the type dissolved in diethyl ether (http://fscimage.fishersci.com/msds/18827.htm)). Yay.