Contamination incidents

[lambert@HAL.HAHNEMANN.EDU]

Interesting thread - I have been through (too) many contamination 
incidents many of which have lessons to learn.  Below are two with 
less common lessons.

I received a telephone call at 2:00 A.M. from a housekeeping staff 
member.  He had been stripping a laboratory floor when his "buffer" hit a 
glass container of pink liquid that the researcher had left on the 
floor.  (The PI was suppose to pick up any materials on the the floor and 
survey the lab before allowing the cleaning.)  Since the room had a CRAM 
label on the door, the housekeeping staff member decided to call 
Radiation Safety - he remembered the instructions given to him by me in 
an inservice a month or so earlier.  I went to the office, determined 
what radionuclide (H-3) was used in the laboratory, picked up swabs and 
went to the lab, swabed the floor, counted the swabs ...  The liquid in 
the container was cell culture media.  
I called the PI (at 3:00 A.M.) to make sure that no biohazardous 
materials were in the container.  When I debriefed the housekeeping staff 
member, he told me that he remembered to call radiation safety but forgot 
the phone number.  He WALKED to the security desk and security called me.
Security, of course was four floors down and three buildings over.
(He could have called the hospital operator at 0.)  Oh well.  
Furtunately, there was no RAM on the floor.  I called the principal 
investigator (at 3:00 am) to confirm that there was also no biohazardous 
material.  Lesson:  Only a part of your inservice message is actually 
heard and retained.

2.  We noticed at the Radiation Safety Office, that the radioactive waste 
container was empty in the radiation safety laboratory.  A search 
recovered the waste bag in the dumpster.  Our housekeeping staff member 
had taken the waste and disposed of it.  We had given him explicit 
instructions regarding radiation safety.  These instructions included 
telling him not to touch the radioactive waste.  When we asked him he 
said, "Yes, you told me not to touch the radioactive waste, so I was very 
careful and handled the bag at its edges."  Lesson:  Be careful not to 
use language which when taken literally does not mean what you intend to 
convey, especially with people from different cultures or when English is 
a second language.

PS  These happened a previous employers.

Kent Lambert
LAMBERT@hal.hahnemann.edu

These are my thoughts.  If they are wrong
I accidentally pressed the send instead of
the delete key.  My employer makes no claim
to endorse my opinions.