----- Original Message -----From: Mary CavanaughSent: Tuesday, February 16, 2010 4:09 PMSubject: [DCHAS-L] Minor Chemical Incidents in Undergraduate LabsHi all, I=92m looking for the collective opinion on something.
Would there be a valid purpose to investigating (as in an accident root-cause analysis) every incident in which an undergraduate college student (usually, but not always, freshmen non-chem majors) gets a minor injury during chemistry lab? Or is this just =93the cost of doing business=94 and a normal part of teaching undergraduate students?
I am speaking strictly about minor incidents in which no medical attention is sought. For example, a student leans on a lab counter and feels a stinging sensation, so it is assumed that s/he contacted some of the acid they were working with; or a few drops of acid or base get on their skin while transferring from a beaker, but is washed off before anything more than stinging or a little reddening of the skin occurs.
Mary M. Cavanaugh CIH
University Industrial Hygienist
Safety & Workers' Comp. Office
cavanaughmm**At_Symbol_Here**appstate . edu
(828) 262-6838 Direct
(828) 262-2936 Fax
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