Middle and high school teachers NEVER get training in the hazards of the chemicals that they work with on a routine basis.

We did massive cleanouts of chemical storage last year, and had to have the bomb squad show up at 3 our of our 4 high schools.

Generally a good thing, but I would be concerned if the "government oversight" is going to be provided by the science-unfriendly State of Texas.

When it comes to chemicals related to warfare, Texas is not going to mess around.

I remember when this happened, and there was an email sent out, asking everyone for suggestions. I sent this link along. I don't know if they looked at it or not, but some of the things NucleophilicAttack's article cover some of the concepts: apprenticing, ritual, and the outside task force.

There's also the box checking so we don't get sued nonsense, but I guess that can never go totally away.

Sounds like everyone should have known better. It's amazing how long things can go without going wrong, but eventually they do.

interesting article. I kind of work with this stuff at BigPharmaco, as I am indirectly attached to the Environmental Health & Safety group. Articles like these get sent round by our personnel safety manager to all the chemical operators, as well as to the interns and grad students we have attached to our research group. We do a lot of safety training and it's high on everyone's radar here, even plebs like me who never set foot in the labs.

our EH&S group actually piloted and developed a summer program a few years ago to clean up hazardous old school lab chemicals in regional Native American schools. They tend to get overlooked because they're not on the federal oversight / management programs.

Our guys go and do this every summer. One of the first busywork tasks I was given when I started temping here over three years ago was entering the long list of chemicals into a spreadsheet and attaching the MSDS information to them. They actually discovered a whole sodium brick in one of the labs!!! Not to mention scads of mercury, chromium, cadmium, etc...

Oh here, let me put this potential bomb in my pocket and walk around a bit. Oops, I forgot about it and took it home.

It's sad that this dude got hurt, but I can't help say he had it coming.

Thanks for putting this up. Whenever I read about lab accidents, it's almost always the case that it's not just one thing that goes wrong. I'm reminded of the story of the liquid nitrogen container at Texas A&M that exploded (fortunately after hours), cracking the floor and blowing a hole in the ceiling. Or just read the posts in the "How Not To Do It" section of the aforequoted blog for a cavalcade (potpourri? plethora?) of lab horror stories.