Sciencemadness Discussion Board

UCLA prof and UC system face felony charges after lab accident

gutter_ca - 28-12-2011 at 11:01

http://laist.com/2011/12/28/post_140.php
Quote:

A UCLA chemistry professor and the University of California are facing criminal charges in connection with a laboratory fire that killed a worker Sheharbano "Sheri" Sangji three years ago. Sangji, 23, was transferring a highly-flammable chemical from one container to another when her syringe broke, exposing the chemical to the air. It erupted in flames, igniting her sweater and giving her burns so severe that she died 18 days later.
...


The chem blogs are all blowing up over this. Thoughts:

Will this be am impetus for PIs to have greater oversight in academic labs?

How much responsibility should fall on the PI? On the assistant (she had a BS chem degree)?

Is safety training at all adequate in academia? Or industry for that matter?

Lambda-Eyde - 28-12-2011 at 12:22

I read in another article that she was wearing a fleece sweater instead of a cotton lab coat while she was transferring a pyrophoric alkyllithium reagent. Either her or the people in charge have been incredibly stupid and/or laidback, but 4 1/2 years is a little extreme...

Reminds me of a saying I've heard:

In America, you pay the lawyer to win your case,
In the rest of the world, you pay the lawyer to get a fair trial...

gutter_ca - 28-12-2011 at 16:42

http://hrtw.blogspot.com/2011/12/felony-charges-in-ucla-lab-...

AndersHoveland - 28-12-2011 at 17:51

Quote: Originally posted by Lambda-Eyde  
...while she was transferring a pyrophoric alkyllithium reagent.


I have heard that most cases of serious laboratory fire injury result from such pyrophoric regents. This certainly is not the first time an incident like this has occurred.

quicksilver - 29-12-2011 at 07:23

Safety training in modern industry is intertwined with licensing and mandatory. In any plant with minimum shielding (and their are inspection areas, where staff are in direct contact with toxic, energetic, or other safety-mandated materials) the people are continually trained as part of their work package (similar to "continuing education").

At least that's been the standard in American industry. In China lately reforms for a minimum wage and demand for safety inspection through a licensing in (as an example) pyrotechnics plants) have risen the prices of many articles higher so that areas of industry which operated with lower safety standards years ago are now costing more as exported goods.

[Edited on 29-12-2011 by quicksilver]

bbartlog - 1-1-2012 at 18:52

This is a matter for a civil suit at most. Criminal charges are ridiculous.

benzylchloride1 - 1-1-2012 at 21:18

Tert-butyl lithium is very pyrophoric, I have handled the stuff before and it can be quite scary. The lab assistant was using a disposable plastic syringe and the plunger can out. The alkyl lithium ended up igniting a nearby open bottle of flammable solvent and the rest is history. This is a tragic example of how bad our educational system is with as far as training chemists that know how to actually do real chemistry. I have read several articles on this incident, these indicated that she had very little experience as far as handling pyrophoric reagents.

[Edited on 2-1-2012 by benzylchloride1]

BromicAcid - 1-1-2012 at 21:28

When I got out of college with my BS in chemistry it wasn't like there was ANY training on the toxicity or hazards of the reagents. There was nothing in the texts except the occasional note in the lab procedure that said (warning - flammable) or something mentioned by the teacher as an aside. It was an entirely different world from the professional world where safety is pounded into your head with a rubber mallet until you bleed from the ears and beg them to end it all.

peach - 1-1-2012 at 22:26

She had run this reaction before and was scaling it up, using a bigger plastic syringe rather than a cannula. The plastic being impossible to thoroughly dry, yet she had flame dried her glass. So she must have been told at some point, and been aware, that things needed be well dried, but not considered the syringe a problem.

There was a shower in the same room, which she didn't use. Someone else had enough time to wrap her in a lab coat and then have her sit on the floor whilst water was poured over her.

The laboratory was using a Sigma Aldrich technical bulletin as a guide, but omitting some sections of it. I read those bulletins purely out of interest, and I am neither a chemistry student nor teacher (nor an account holder). I would expect better of those involved than to need it forcing on them.

[Edited on 2-1-2012 by peach]

Magpie - 2-1-2012 at 09:45

Quote: Originally posted by benzylchloride1  
This is a tragic example of how bad our educational system is with as far as training chemists that know how to actually do real chemistry.


benzylchloride1 and I have discussed this problem before. I'm surmising that it's due to a lack of preliminary experience in handling hazardous chemicals under the guidance of experienced mentors, lab instructors, and professors. Another contributing factor is a lack of true interest in chemistry and science. Many are just there for the credentials.

The BS Chem graduate comes to the graduate school where his cutting edge thesis project may very possibly require some skill in handling pyrophoric, extremely poisonous, highly flammable, or other such risky chemicals. Instead of bringing the proper experience gained through experiments and mentoring from a skilled teacher, he instead brings an unrealistic phobia for all chemicals. Then the thesis requirements place him in a very tough situation, ie, he is a "babe-in-the-woods," ready for slaughter.

I have never been to grad school. But I have witnessed the dumbing down of the junior level chemistry lab courses to rid the curriculum of hazardous, poisonous, and non-green reagents.

entropy51 - 2-1-2012 at 14:49

Quote: Originally posted by Magpie  
Quote: Originally posted by benzylchloride1  
This is a tragic example of how bad our educational system is with as far as training chemists that know how to actually do real chemistry.


benzylchloride1 and I have discussed this problem before. I'm surmising that it's due to a lack of preliminary experience in handling hazardous chemicals under the guidance of experienced mentors, lab instructors, and professors.
One of the reasons for the lack of good training in lab safety has been the lack of a good textbook on which such an undergraduate course could be based,

Last year such a textbook was published. It is Laboratory Safety for Chemistry Students by Robert H. Hill and David C. Finster, published by Wiley, 2010. It is available at the usual places.

MattKey - 2-1-2012 at 18:30

I am a graduate student in the chemistry department at UCLA, so I am well aware of the issues regarding safety practices at this school, as well as others that I have attended.

Since the terrible accident at UCLA a couple of years ago, involving Sangji, UCLA, the chemistry department, and the Environmental Health and Services (EH&S) department have all gotten very serious about safety requirements, at least nominally. Actually, I do not really have the best perspective to judge this change myself since I arrived at UCLA after the accident, so I can only really assess the current situation and hear about how things have changed.

From my perspective, though, most people consider safety training to be a nuisance and a waste of time. The grad students, post-docs, professors, ..., are all busy people and usually do not feel that being forced to attend a few hours of safety training is a good use of their time. People avoid doing it whenever possible and do not take it seriously. And the content of the training itself is not worthwhile, in my opinion, since it is either too generalized, or will not stick / be followed in practice.

EH&S will often times concentrate on enforcing trivial details, and not concern itself with the bigger issues. For example, you had better learn how to fill out a waste disposal tag correctly for a solution of sodium chloride in water (because it is a hazardous chemical) and cover up and label your beakers of waste rinse-water, because those are 'critical violations’. There is a class to teach you how to fill out waste tags. And to use an AFM (type of scanning probe microscope used to image a surface on the very small scale), you have to attend a laser safety class, even though the laser that is used is <1 mW and turns itself off automatically in all but the safest orientations of the device....but it is a laser and thus we must treat it the same as all other lasers.
I fully support disposing of chemical waste safely, and maintaining a safe lab environment for my colleges, but but when it comes to stuff that is actually dangerous, or potentially so, like cleaning glassware with piranha solution, or using HF, all of that training is left to the PI and one’s lab mates, which is usually very lacking.

I do not think that there is anything special about UCLA in this regard, I think the most universities are like this.

I also think that it is true that many grad students, coming from a predominantly classroom-dominated undergraduate education do not learn many of the practical lab skills needed to operate safely in a lab environment. I have observed many people will a moderate fear of, or at least comfortability with, chemicals. They will often pick up bad habits, or misconceptions, which are hard to fix later on. This is not true for everyone, though, but I have seen this in more than a few incoming grad students.

peach - 3-1-2012 at 12:36

Quote: Originally posted by entropy51  
One of the reasons for the lack of good training in lab safety has been the lack of a good textbook on which such an undergraduate course could be based,

Last year such a textbook was published. It is Laboratory Safety for Chemistry Students by Robert H. Hill and David C. Finster, published by Wiley, 2010. It is available at the usual places.


I can appreciate that this is a broader topic than the one at hand but, had they followed the technical bulletin Sigma provided and which they had, this wouldn't have happened.

Those bulletins are free and they'll even email them to you as new ones come out.

It would not be difficult for those with access to sigma, or sigma themselves, to demonstrate the problems graphically in thirty second videos. E.g. fill a plastic syringe with a pyrophoric material and then remove the plunger (or allow it to fall out, or be blown out by over pressure).

Another example could be allowing ether to spill onto a mantle over the autoignition temperature. This occurred in another university, when the spout from one of the solvent stills was allowed to drip onto the heat source, causing it all to go up and set fire to the student.

[Edited on 3-1-2012 by peach]

fledarmus - 3-1-2012 at 13:06

The worst problem is that there is no indication in any of the labeling just how dangerous a compound is. Not that there aren't a lot of warnings on the bottle - there certainly are! - but the warnings on a bottle of a highly reactive, pyrophoric compound which ignites spontaneously when a drop of it comes out of a syringe is no more noticeable than the hazard labels on a bottle of washed sea sand. When every chemical in the lab is labeled as if it was extremely toxic and hazardous and the MSDS for every single compound tells you that it must be used in the hood with gloves, labcoat, and safety glasses, how can you figure out the truly hazardous materials from all the noise? Yes, there is a technical bulletin available for t-butyllithium, and there well should be because it is an extreme fire hazard, but how would an incoming grad student know that?

Most of us pretty much ignore the hazard labels on the bottles and treat most compounds as moderately hazardous. Otherwise it just takes too long to research every single compound, only to find that most of them are as safe as salt. There are a few really bad actors though, that HAVE to be pointed out to anybody starting independent research, and that should never be used without direct supervision until the person has demonstrated the appropriate respect for the compound. This is not a job that can be left to a senior level grad student, who has his hands full with his own research or thesis defense and has little or no accountability to the school or company. This is the direct responsibility of the Principal Investigator, and should be treated as such. It's a little stupid to single out this case and throw criminal charges at one investigator for doing something that is done by every other University professor in the world (barring a few who just feel individually that such training is important, and don't even admit their attitude to their own departments), but there needs to be some teaching of respect for specific chemicals. As tragic as this episode was, it was still a small fire that only killed one person - what if it had been a phosgene or HCN gas release that had taken out an entire lab? Or more?

As part of basic safety, there should be a (short!!!) list of extremely dangerous compounds that cannot be used in University research without hands-on training - and the expectation of criminal liability for failure to train properly - by the principal investigator

peach - 3-1-2012 at 13:49

Quote:
Yes, there is a technical bulletin available for t-butyllithium, and there well should be because it is an extreme fire hazard, but how would an incoming grad student know that?


The technical bulletins from Sigma are not specific to one compound, they are generic handling practice guidelines for materials that present unique problems.

She obviously was aware of the issue and flamed her glass.

She is a chemistry graduate.

And the laboratory was using that bulletin.

I, and many others here, will at least attempt to check the risks presented by something we're about to cook up at home.

Keeping all of this in mind (her having a degree, them having the bulletin, that she will have been aware that this was a somewhat odd material she was using, and that it is next to impossible to list all the risks even for mundane materials) how much more can be put in place?

{edit} I do agree with the point about use of meaningless hazard labels. The NFPA fire diamond is an attempt to better that, by providing four hazard classes and four levels of risk all within one symbol. They even include the white box for abnormal properties - 'CARC', carcinogenic, 'RAD', radioactive, 'W with a line through it', no water etc.

[Edited on 3-1-2012 by peach]

Wizzard - 3-1-2012 at 13:55

People should know a bit about each and every compound they are working with- Without access to college level materials at hand (personally), I Google/Wiki search and read up about everything I work with, start to finish.

Not saying anything directly of this horrible accident, but what's missing in most accidents is personal accountability. If one is left to do something on their own, and one DOESN'T know everything one needs to know, and one IS aware it's dangerous- Its one's own responsibility to find out and know just how dangerous it could be.

"[T]here are known knowns; there are things we know we know.
We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know we don't know." -Rumsfeld (just a nice quote)

People should only work in their known/known areas of expertise, scientists walk the line of known/unknowns, in order to make those things known/knowns. The stupid work in their known/unknowns and stumble into their unknown/unknowns by accident, at their peril.

quicksilver - 4-1-2012 at 11:48

This is an interesting subject. I have almost gotten into a habit of reading labels. On food products for dietary reasons and on other items for OTC sources. Over the course of years I've MUCH less product elements listed and was eventually forced to search out the MSDS. Often this is due (IMO) to a physical space limitation and in my area because the label is almost always written in two languages. It seems there simply isn't room enough to do so unless the typeface is so small it's almost illegible. It appears that the cost of changing product label size is much greater than written layout.

vulture - 4-1-2012 at 14:19

First of all, not wearing a labcoat but wearing a synthetic sweater is pretty stupid when you're working with pyrophoric reagents. Regardless, I've never seen anybody in our lab work in a fumehood without putting on their coat, it's second nature. Maybe turn off a heating element with the hood down, yes, but that's it.

Considering labels, MSDS, the like...it's getting HORRIBLE. Lawyers and people with zero chemical knowledge are making the rules.

Case in point: We need to fill special permission forms to buy and use KOtBu. NaH on the other hand, can be used off the shelf without any questions. Any chemist worth his salt will tell you this is ridiculous and dangerous.

Other example: Risk analysis is submitted for a reaction carried out a reflux, specifying the solvent. Question from the safety department: please specify the temperature.

Magpie - 5-1-2012 at 21:27

Here is a link to a video produced by the Chemical Safety Board (CSB) that describes this tragedy at UCLA.

Included are the dimethyl mercury poisoning at a university lab, and an explosion at a Texas Tech laboratory where an explosive was being investigated on a contract for Homeland Security.

http://www.csb.gov/videoroom/detail.aspx?VID=61

gregxy - 6-1-2012 at 10:47

When I took first year O-chem in college years ago there was an accident. One of the students forgot to extinguish his bunsen burner before getting out the benzene. Of course we had been warned over and over to extinguish all flames before working with solvents. When the benzene ignited the startled student threw the burning beaker up in the air. It came down on his arm. Luckily someone was able to quickly cover his arm and put out the fire. The accident resulted in some minor burns to the students arm, but could have been much worse.

No amount of safety training is going to eliminate all accidents. I think the best solution is to provide reasonable training and then minimize the involvement of lawyers through no fault insurance to keep the costs down.


Providing training for "unusual dangers" is very important. A normal person knows not to step in front of a moving car, and that knives are sharp. A person working in a lab should be expected to know to put out flames before working with solvents and not to eat the reagents. A phyrophoric compound is an unusual danger. A normal person, or even one that has worked in a lab for many years would not expect something to ignite just from contact with the air.
Likewise something toxic enough to kill from a single drop touching the skin is unusual. If the woman in the OP was not informed the compound was pyrophoric and given training in how to handle it then it should be considered negligence.
However some jobs are just dangerous.

[Edited on 6-1-2012 by gregxy]

quicksilver - 6-1-2012 at 11:06

Many years back I had decided to carefully discern what was an "accident" and what was "negligence". I got into the personal habit of referring to many issues as a "negligent (so-and so)" This actually helped me on several occasions with self reminders to put on eye-protection or whatever.
In the OP's original post we may never know if this was some freak of circumstances or a negligent situation (primarily because we weren't there & it's tough to depend on 3rd party reporting - it may not even be fair. but if everything reported was accurate, could this be an issue of negligence or terrible circumstances? If so, it can happen to be best educated.

Magpie - 6-1-2012 at 19:58

I started on a synthesis today, which I will describe in detail when completed. Because of my current attention to the UCLA tragedy as well as the Wennerstrahn poisoning, and the Texas Tech explosion, I was trying to be very safety conscious. I had on my lab coat (a heavy cotton long-sleeved shirt), safety glasses, and nitrile gloves. I had the hood fan on although I doubt if any vapors were escaping from my reflux condenser. But what almost got me was an electrocution, or at least a good shock. I was using a mechanical mixer with electrical motor. At the same time I was adjusting the elevation of an ice bag with a scissor jack. The jack seemed to be binding somehow and would not lift and lower properly. The ice bag was large and was obscuring my view of what was causing this. So I just kept trying, but fortunately did not screw the jack with excessive force. When I finally pulled the bag away I could see that the mixer cord was caught up in the jack scissors. Only the substantial insulation of the cord prevented me from being shocked.

Now, what if a grad student did this while working on his project and died from electrical shock. It would have been investigated but he would just become another statistic. No CSB investigation, no shake-up of the chemistry department. But he would have been just as dead. To his friends and family it would have been a tragedy equal to those at UCLA, Dartmouth, and Texas Tech. I guess what I'm saying is that we seem to accept known risks and hazards. It sometimes seems like it is only the bizarre incidents that get a lot of attention.

S.C. Wack - 21-1-2012 at 11:02

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ucla-lab-20120121,0,...

AndersHoveland - 21-1-2012 at 11:59

I find it somewhat amusing that the government thinks it can solve the problems in society by punishing people. And when that does not work, they think the problem is that the punishments are not severe enough.

Trying to hold individuals or entities responsible for tragic accidents that where not really anyones fault is neither fair to the individual, nor is it likely prevent accidents in the future. It just drives up the costs of insurance, and in the case of a business, the costs to the consumer.

entropy51 - 21-1-2012 at 13:39

Quote: Originally posted by AndersHoveland  
I find it somewhat amusing that the government thinks it can solve the problems in society by punishing people. And when that does not work, they think the problem is that the punishments are not severe enough.

Trying to hold individuals or entities responsible for tragic accidents that where not really anyones fault is neither fair to the individual, nor is it likely prevent accidents in the future. It just drives up the costs of insurance, and in the case of a business, the costs to the consumer.
Your typically simplistic thinking has caused you to fail to differentiate between accidents and negliglence. Failure of a PI to train and supervise lab workers is negligence. I have been a PI for longer than I care to admit, and whenever a safety inspection, often by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), turns up violations in our lab, I alone am held responsible. These violations are never viewed as accidents, and rightly so. They are my fault and I institute training and procedural changes to fix the problem. And yes, the punishment, often a monetary fine by the NRC or possible suspension of my license, does indeed tend to keep me and my workers focused on safety.

Your social and political commentary is less informed than your chemical reaction schemes, if that is possible.

AndersHoveland - 21-1-2012 at 14:10

Is it really fair to hold the institution or instructor completely responsible? Because unless there has been intentional negligence, the concept of responsibility is really quite subjective. These types of accidents are often the combined indirect result of the actions and inactions of a countless number of people (for example the chemical manufacturer or the student herself). Trying to determine what all those people should and should not have done, and how much responsibility each should be held to as a result of their actions or inactions, is not a simple affair. The very fact that the regulatory agencies exist is proof that the court system in inadequate to handle these types of complex problems.

Often when something goes wrong, everyone wants to conveniently point the blame somewhere, but this often results in unfair injustice.

[Edited on 21-1-2012 by AndersHoveland]

Neil - 21-1-2012 at 15:14

...due diligence...

aliced25 - 12-3-2012 at 03:42

Quote: Originally posted by bbartlog  
This is a matter for a civil suit at most. Criminal charges are ridiculous.


No, I would say criminal charges are warranted and seriously overdue. Causing death by engaging in or allowing others to engage in conduct which is inherently and manifestly unsafe, knowing the likelihood of a bad outcome, while ignoring safety requirements and the rest, that is culpable.

There is a degree of acceptance of a known risk given the person knew what she was doing was dangerous, but supervision is required for a reason - that being that people tend to do dumb shit without it.

I personally have a major issue with people bypassing, turning off and/or ignoring safety measures through apathy or just plain stupidity. If you ignore safety requirements/measures and what they are designed to prevent happening happens, it isn't an accident - it's a fuck up. It would be an accident if it were unforeseen as being a real possibility, if it were foreseen as being a real possibility, then choosing to do so (or allow someone else to do so) is a case of piss poor judgement.

That the person would be killed might not be easily foreseeable, it doesn't have to be, everyone involved knew that fucking with pyrophoric chemicals without regard to safety is a fuckup waiting to happen and fire was always a possibility. Doing so without elementary precautions like flame-resistant outerwear near open containers of flammable solvent? You really cannot see the problem?

That this was "allowed" to happen, despite the lab and supervisor being aware of it, is what is being prosecuted. It amazes me, everyone knows that the OH&S requirements exist, but how many know the penalties for failing to abide by them and to ensure that employees abide by them? Bugger all, the laws aren't new, neither are the penalties, ignorance is no excuse nor is the fact that everyone else gets away with it. There is no excuse for those in charge ignoring dangerous, stupid stunts or work practices, they are responsible for what is going on.

If I got in a vehicle stewed to the gills and ran someone over, I'd be jailed, yet not that long ago being drunk was an excuse for doing so. What can be accepted changes and so it should.

[Edited on 12-3-2012 by aliced25]