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us_ga: Tech students badly burned behind frat
house
Two Georgia Tech students
were seriously burned early Wednesday in a chemical explosion behind a
fraternity house.
The
incident happened about 12:30 a.m. at the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity house
at the intersection of 6th Street and Techwood Drive.
The men, ages 20 and 21, were burned as they tried to
mix aluminum powder and rust powder.
A Georgia
Tech spokeswoman identified the two as Tommy Keen, a sophomore aerospace
engineering student from Peachtree City, and Paul Grzybowski, a junior
materials science student from Appling.
The students were taken to Grady Memorial Hospital for
treatment of first- and second-degree burns to their upper bodies. Both
were listed in critical condition.
"Georgia
Tech's primary concern is focused on the condition and well-being of the
students involved in this incident," Tech spokeswoman Lisa Ray
Grovenstein said. "The institute's Environmental Health and Safety team
is working closely with the Atlanta Fire Department to determine the
exact nature of the materials involved in this incident and how the
injuries occurred."
Mechanical engineering student Michael Parker of Hiram was at
an adjacent fraternity house when the incident
happened.
Parker told WSB Radio that
Keen and Grzybowski had mixed aluminum powder and rust powder in an
experiment that he called "high school basic chemistry." The experiment
can produce a pyrotechnic effect, much like a huge
sparkler.
"It's real simple to get;
you don't have to really go very far to get the materials," Parker said.
"You just put them together and ignite them with a butane torch and it's
called a thermite reaction."
Parker
said the resulting reaction "runs thousands of degrees Celsius - it's
molten iron."
Parker told WSB that he
didn't hear an actual explosion.
"In a
thermite reaction, there should never be a real explosion, unless they
hit an oxygen pocket or something like that that was exceedingly
flammable," he said. "Once the reaction has actually started, it's
literally just molten iron, but it can get out of control if you don't
have it set up right."
us_nc: UPDATE: Forklift believed to be cause of toxic
fumes in Bladen
BLADEN COUNTY, NC (WECT) - Six workers have been taken
to the hospital, and several others are being treated on site at
Carolina Blueberry north of White Lake in Bladen
County.
Law enforcement officials on
scene tell WECT.com that the accidental
mixing of chemicals may have caused asthmatic respiratory reaction. Victims are being
transported to the Bladen County Hospital. HAZMAT officials are
setting up a decontamination station on site, to treat other personnel
affected by the accident. It is
believed that the mixing of chemical chlorine and a cleaning solution
around 8:00 p.m. is what caused the breakout of breathing
difficulties.
The Carolina Blueberry
Association has had a processing facility in this location since
1988.
UPDATE: 2:30 AM - Hazmat
workers were able to get into the building. At the time of entry, which
was just after midnight, the oxygen level in the building was zero.
Crews used hand held monitors to test two forklifts that were inside.
One was found to be faulty due to incomplete combustion. The combustion
caused propane gas and carbon monoxide leakage.
us_in:
Man killed in Merrillville house explosion
June 1, 2010 (MERRILLVILLE, Ind.) (WLS) -- One man was
killed in an explosion at a home in northwest Indiana.
It happened early Monday morning in
Merrillville.
A 37-year-old male resident
died in the explosion. The house was leveled.
Emergency crews pulled several propane tanks and gas
cans from the wreckage.
Officials
have evacuated residents in a two-block radius until 5 o'clock Tuesday
night over fears of a hazmat situation.
"Gasoline was detected in the sewer system and in the
homes. And so we had to evacuate the residents in the area and conduct a
search of all the homes and check the levels, which we found explosive
levels in the house, in multiple houses," said Michael Sneiderwine, Ross
Township Fire Service.
No other
injuries have been reported and investigators are trying to determine
what sparked the explosion.
us_ma: Hazmat team in Weston for chemical fumes
WESTON =97 A regional hazardous materials response
team was called to Weston yesterday after a Conant Road resident fell
ill when he breathed in fumes from chemicals in his garage, fire
officials said.
Fire Chief David Soar said a
call came in at 5:44 p.m. reporting a homeowner on Conant Road who was
feeling lightheaded after moving containers around in his garage.
Soar said the man had been storing household chemicals
like cleaning agents and pesticides in his garage for a long time. He
did not know what the exact chemicals were.
"It was things people would have in their garage," he
said. "Over time, it got wet and it mixed together."
The man was taken to the hospital as a precautionary
measure, Soar said. "there was no danger to anyone elese in the
neighborhood."
Because the man had a physical reaction to the
chemicals, Weston fire officials called in the state Hazmat District 2
response team to investigate the substance, Soar said.
"We didn't really feel comfortable at the scene so we
called in Hazmat," said Soar.
Fire crews and the Hazmat team were at the scene for
about 6 hours altogether while the chemicals were metered and evaluated,
said Soar.
india:
Workshops, manual=85Delhi University looks anew at lab safety
New Delhi, June 2 (IANS) The radiation leak fiasco
here that claimed one life was a =93wake-up call=94 for Delhi
University. Its chemistry department, which came under heavy fire for
the incident, is now working on a three-pronged strategy to make lab
safety a primary concern.
=93Lab safety has taken a whole new meaning after the
Cobalt-60 incident=85it has come like a wake-up call for us because
precautions and lab safety are not always taken very seriously,=94 A.K.
Bakshi, who was appointed head of the department of chemistry after the
radiation leak, told IANS.
=93We have realised that we should not wait for
another accident to happen and therefore have come up with a
three-pronged strategy to ensure that lab safety is not compromised by
anyone and at any cost,=94 Bakshi said.
The source of the leak at a scrap market in west
Delhi=92s Mayapuri area - in which one person was killed and six were
affected - was a radioactive gamma cell containing Cobalt-60 that was
auctioned as scrap by Delhi University=92s chemistry department over two
months ago.
The incident posed serious questions on the usage,
storage and disposal of radioactive material which are often used for
experiments in chemistry labs.
Bakshi said: =93As part of the strategy, we will first
have a series of workshops - initially for the teachers of the
university on lab safety. Experts will be called from various
institutions at these workshops. Teachers already know what precautions
need to be taken, but these will simply brush up their skills and help
them train the students better.=94
The workshops will also touch upon the subject of
disposal of chemical and radioactive waste, as well as their storage and
usage.
=93Besides students, the special and formal training
will also help teachers impart knowledge to the laboratory staff better,
as they are the ones who spend the most amount of time in the labs,=94
he added.
The workshops, Bakshi said, will be conducted before
the academic session begins in July.
A lab safety manual which charts out the dos and
don=92ts while conducting an experiment is also being prepared. This
will be for both the undergraduate and the post graduate levels.
=93I am even thinking of suggesting that in the
chemistry practical exams, some marks should be reserved for a student=92s
discipline in following the safety manual through the year. This will
make students more aware and careful,=94 Bakshi told IANS.
Uploading e-learning material on lab safety, how to
handle various chemicals and apparatus and other such things on the
university=92s newly launched e-learning portal is the third
strategy.
=93Considering that lab staff is the backbone of
maintaining a laboratory, I am also thinking of instituting an award for
the best maintained lab. This will motivate the staff to keep the lab
clean, mark the chemical bottles and ensure the overall safety,=94 he
added.
=93We have more than 100 chemistry labs in different
colleges in the university and 3,000-4,000 students. Through all these
initiatives we just want to make the students feel they are cared for
and that the labs are a safe place to work and learn in,=94 Bakshi
said.
