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The Importance of Lab Safety

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While time spent in the lab can be educational and exciting it can also be a very dangerous place. An explosion and fire destroyed a lab at Ohio State University leaving some graduate students thankful for their lives. Experts say that schools and academic institutions have anywhere from 10 up to a 50 times greater chance of accidents than labs located elsewhere. This can be a product of horseplay with younger students to collegiate students who are afraid to report overall lab safety hazards to officials for fear of repercussions from their peers or superiors. On the other hand, while academic labs have more occurrences of accidents, industrial labs have incidents on a much larger scale because they generally work with greater quantities of hazardous substances. The fire at Ohio State was set in motion by a broken bottle containing chemicals. With the right knowledge of what other materials where in the lab and the quick thinking of the students the blaze was eventually put out and there were no serious injuries, but this example shows just how quickly things can turn dangerous in a lab setting.

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