While most academic buildings rested empty and peaceful Sunday evening, an acid spill and minor flooding shook up Steele, the chemistry building, when a student accidentally spilled nitric acid during an experiment.
David Lincoln '02 suffered minor burns on his arm and face while measuring the level of lead in maple syrup for a Chemistry 63 Environmental Chemistry laboratory exercise.
The accident occurred when a repipette burst open after Lincoln pumped the device with too much pressure, loosening the sealed cap and splashing nitric acid -- a substance commonly used for experiments but still considered relatively dangerous -- onto his arm and face.
Environmental Chemistry Professor Charles Braun said the chemical was spilled "in small quantity, but with some velocity" onto the student.
Fortunately, Lincoln was wearing protective eyewear and gloves, which prevented serious injury from occurring.
He was taken to the emergency room at Dartmouth-Hitchock Medical Center but was released the same night and was able to attend class Monday morning.
His quick recovery was in part due to the efforts of the student working with Lincoln, who called 911 when the accident occurred.
The Hanover fire department dispatch alerted the environmental health and safety office, and emergency workers rushed to the site, including an ambulance and a fire truck.
Lincoln was escorted to the safety showers on the third floor, where water pumped onto his body at the rate of approximately 20 gallons a minute, according to Michael Blayney, director of environmental health and safety.
However, no drains were installed beneath these safety showers and water flooded the room, eventually seeping through the floor down to the second floor, where a geochemist was working.
Blayney noted that even if a drain had been installed with the shower, the enormous amount of water gushing out could have easily overwhelmed the drain, producing the same results.
Braun said the experiment was "not [dangerous] in principle," but added that "all chemicals are dangerous, even water."
"All the students in chem 63 have had both general chemistry and organic chemistry, and we took that as representative of their experience," he said.
Blayney expressed relief that Lincoln was careful in his preparations, which prevented the accident from getting out of hand.
"Unfortunately this person was injured, but there's a good side to it too," Blayney said.
"The thing I want to really emphasize that all the right things were done in this situation," Blayney said, adding that the precautions prevented "a serious situation from becoming worse."
He pointed out that Lincoln had permission to be working in the building late at night, was accompanied by another student and took necessary safety precautions, all of which lessened the severity of the incident.
He said that this was the first student injury of this magnitude that has occurred since he arrived here five years ago.
The incident also provoked discussion within the Chemistry department whether or not to change their policies allowing students to work in the laboratories at night.
"We thought about it a lot ... we talked about restricting [access], but we've come to the general conviction that the accident could have happened morning, noon or night," Braun said.
Braun added that it was difficult to sense the best laboratory environment for Lincoln, who was at a tricky level of experience.
"Students in introductory course labs are carefully controlled. On the other hand, students in research labs do all sorts of things, many of which aren't in any papers or texts," he said. "David is at an intermediate stage, it is very difficult to say exactly what is appropriate."
