Question: have you ever had an experiment go terribly wrong?

Emily Goddard answered on 9 Mar 2020:

It depends what you mean by going terribly wrong! I’ve done an awful lot of experiments that just didn’t work, science isn’t always as predictable as you’d like…

There is one that went dangerously wrong though, when I nearly electrocuted myself. I was about six months into my PhD and was using a piece of equipment made by an engineer to dry some of the salts I was using. Unfortunately, over time one of the wires in it became loose and when I touched the metal casing it gave me a bad electrical shock and burns on my hands and my thigh (electrical burns give entry and exit wounds where the current enters and leaves your body).

I spent most of the day in the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, having an ECG and blood tests, but I was lucky that the current had passed down one side of my body so hadn’t affected my heart. The burns took a while to heal, but healed very well, so I’ll just have a couple of little (<1 cm) scars to remind me of my PhD forever!

I was scared to go into the lab for a while afterwards, but everybody at the University was very nice about it and really helped me build my confidence back up — at first they'd even switch lights and hotplates on and off for me, and didn't leave me alone in the lab.

Accidents like that are very very rare though. Our department now has a policy that any non-standard equipment gets a full safety check before it can be used, and we have to include any equipment we're using (not just our chemicals) on the risk assessment we write before doing the experiment.