derf wrote: "And don't throw a chunk of Sodium into a toilet..."
The university chemistry department had been cited several times by
Cal-OSHA after accidents had injured and disfigured students. So, the
university vice president and the university safety officer were going
to make a "surprise" inspection. Unfortunately, they told my boss, the
dean, about the inspection the day before. Since he was a chemist, he
gave all of the faculty a warning. So much for "surprise".
One of the Chemistry Department full professors (who also happened to
head the department safety committee) hurriedly tried to clean up his
lab. In doing so, he dumped some sodium metal down the drain. You got
it! It blew up the lab, and almost him with it. Of course it was
hushed up, his lab was sealed off, and the inspection team told the lab
was not in use. ("Sodium" or plain old table salt, is quite different
from "sodium metal".)
Even the chemistry profession has recognized that university faculty
labs are the unsafest and most dangerous labs in the profession. More
so than high school, because they don't have chemistry PhD's in them
(according to the publication "Chemical Engineering").
Buster Evans
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