Greetings all – I hope that everyone is enjoying the summer time.. I am looking to tap into the collective wisdom of the DCHAS list serv.
Table topping student chemical exposures
Sending chemically exposed students to the hospital –
- (hypothetical) A student gets splashed with some concentrated sulfuric acid while wearing gloves, goggles and a lab coat. There is some on their cheek and chin and it burns, they are immediately taken to the eye wash and the
areas are flushed for 15 minutes, it still burns and is slightly red. After another 15 minutes of flushing the student still feels slight discomfort.
- Do you worry about scarring on the face and do you mention it to the exposed individual?
- Do you send them to the emergency room by ambulance?
- (hypothetical) A student splashes some nitric acid on their thighs and it has wetted their jeans, in a short time it becomes itchy and burns, the student goes to the bathroom and removes the contaminated clothing and decontaminates
the sink with wet paper towels. The jeans are washed in the sink and are abraded where the acid made contact. The student is fine and wants to return to work but has no clothing for their legs. Do you:
- Issue a Tyvek suit and allow them to return to work?
- Send them to the ER by ambulance?
- Call their emergency contact and ask them to come and pick them up?
If anyone has some insight or a written document that they use in very minor chemical exposure incidents, where students are not sent to a hospital emergency room, I’d be interested in knowing what you do.
James Saccardo, CHMM
The College of Staten Island
Office of Environmental Health and Safety
(718)-982-3906
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
Benjamin Franklin
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