Hi all, I’m looking for the collective opinion on something.

Would there be a valid purpose to investigating (as in an accident root-cause analysis) every incident in which an undergraduate college student (usually, but not always, freshmen non-chem majors) gets a minor injury during chemistry lab?  Or is this just “the cost of doing business” and a normal part of teaching undergraduate students?

I am speaking strictly about minor incidents in which no medical attention is sought.  For example, a student leans on a lab counter and feels a stinging sensation, so it is assumed that s/he contacted some of the acid they were working with; or a few drops of acid or base get on their skin while transferring from a beaker, but is washed off before anything more than stinging or a little reddening of the skin occurs.

Mary M. Cavanaugh CIH

University Industrial Hygienist

Safety & Workers' Comp. Office

cavanaughmm**At_Symbol_Here**appstate . edu

(828) 262-6838 Direct

(828) 262-2936 Fax