• Question: what is the most dangerouse thing in your job and why because surely you have had a bad experience

    Asked by jack cc to Anais, katy, Lauren, Richard, Stuart on 8 Mar 2016.
    • Photo: Katy Kellett

      Katy Kellett answered on 8 Mar 2016:

      Hi,
      The most dangerous thing in my job is definitely the chemicals that I use. And yes I think its safe to say I have had a bad experience.

      Last year while helping a student a got bromine poured onto my hand and ended up with third degree burns after just 10 seconds! Just goes to show that if you don’t pay full attention, no matter how much experience you have things can always go wrong.

      Definitely didn’t put me off, you live and learn!!

    • Photo: Lauren Laing

      Lauren Laing answered on 8 Mar 2016:

      For me it is the same as Katy, the chemicals I use are often at very very low concentration, which shouldn’t cause me any harm. However, at some point I need to pour the chemical from the concentrated stock bottle into another bottle to dilute it down. When I do this I wear lots of protective clothing!! Luckily I have never spilt a chemical on myself.

    • Photo: Stuart Atkinson

      Stuart Atkinson answered on 8 Mar 2016:

      Like Katy, I’ve also had a bromine burn. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s something that doesn’t know if it’s liquid or a gas, and doesn’t really care! That was a brown hand and blisters for a few weeks.

    • Photo: Anais Kahve

      Anais Kahve answered on 9 Mar 2016:

      Hi Jack, like everyone else, chemicals are probably my biggest threat. But as long as you’re careful with handling them and ask for assistance if you’re handling a big container then you should be fine.

    • Photo: Richard Friend

      Richard Friend answered on 9 Mar 2016:

      Some of the chemicals we use here can cause cancer, some are explosive, and some just smell really bad! Fortunately we have to use the right kit in order to deal with all of these chemicals though.
      A friend of mine was working with ether, and was heating it up to try to get it to evaporate, but it caught fire! There was a massive blaze in the fume cupboard, but luckily it was all contained and no-one was hurt. We’ve also had a few incidences where mercury thermometers were broken and the mercury escaped. They take things like that very seriously these days – back when my mother was in school they gave you some to play with in your hands, but the protective gear the guys were wearing to clean up the mess when we had some in our lab was extreme! They looked like frogmen!

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