[Histonet] Fire in the lab

[louise renton]

hey, I once set my hair on fire in the lab...singed off my eyebrows and
burnt my nostril hair. It took several days for the burnt hair smell to get
out of my nose!!.

This too was in a time long long ago in another time dimension

On Sat, Feb 27, 2010 at 12:51 AM, Joe Nocito <jnocito <@t> satx.rr.com> wrote:

> Once upon a time in a far away land, we used to boil our embedding molds in
> boiling soapy water, over an open Bunsen burner, followed by an alcohol
> rinse then air dry. One time the fire alarm was activated and we had to
> evacuate the hospital. We were out there quit awhile. When we received the
> all clear to go back into the hospital, I was the first one back in the lab
> and the fire department was there, looking into our pot that had boiled out
> and was smoking up the lab. This wasn't the cause of the first alarm, but it
> did set off the second.
>
> Joe
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "CHRISTIE GOWAN" <christiegowan <@t> msn.com>
>
>
> To: <histonet <@t> lists.utsouthwestern.edu>
> Sent: Friday, February 26, 2010 8:20 AM
>
> Subject: [Histonet] Fire in the lab
>
>
>
>
>
>  Dear Histonet Friends,
>
> I just wanted to share an incident we recently had with an old paraffin
> pot. One of my techs came in on Sunday to embed some tissues, went into the
> processor room and smelled something burning. He noticed our old paraffin
> pot had charred looking labels on the outside so he went over, opened the
> lid and poof!!! the pot went up in flames. The thermostat had gone haywire
> and heated the paraffin to flash point. Opening the lid gave it the oxygen
> it needed to ignite. He triggered the alarm, made the appropriate call and
> then put it out with an extinguisher. Of course it kept re-igniting because
> he could not get behind it to pull the plug. The fire dept finally was able
> to get it pulled out and unplugged. Needless to say the tech was shaken and
> the room was a mess. I applaud his courage and am not sure I would have done
> the same. There was enough xylene and alcohol on the 4 processors to cause
> quite an explosion but everything else was in a flammable cabinet. I was
> wondering if this type of thing had ever happened to anyone else?? Needless
> to say, we have de-comissioned all old paraffin pots and will order only
> those with over temp safety features. I guess I just wanted to remind
> everyone that fires can happen in the lab and do probably more often than we
> hear about. This was the first time for me and I have been in this business
> for over 20 years. Take care and be safe.
>
> Christie Gowan HT (ASCP)
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-- 
Louise Renton
Bone Research Unit
University of the Witwatersrand
Johannesburg
South Africa
"There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls".
George Carlin
No trees were killed in the sending of this message.
However, many electrons were terribly inconvenienced.