This is way out of my normal range of Product Safety experience, but I can say "BE VERY CAREFUL" with liquid nitrogen.
My memory bank reminded of a fatality in Scotland not that long ago, and after a short search on liquid+nitrogen+death, I came up with the following : ------------------------------------------------------------- Chemical spill kills lab technician Gerard Seenan Tuesday October 26, 1999 The Guardian A man was killed and four others injured yesterday after a chemical spillage in a human genetics laboratory. The laboratory assistant, who has not been named, was discovered in a medical research council laboratory in the Western general hospital, Edinburgh, yesterday morning. Four colleagues who attempted to go to his aid sustained minor injuries and were treated for the affects of chemical inhalation. A spokesman for Lothian and Borders fire brigade said liquid nitrogen, a coolant used in medical and chemical laboratories, had escaped from a tank. The spillage was confined to a basement laboratory, well away from the main hospital building. Around 40 people were evacuated from the four-storey building after the spillage, which firefighters managed to quickly isolated. The MRC said no member of the public was ever at risk. The four co-workers who attempted to help the man suffered minor injuries and were treated for the affects of chemical inhalation in hospital. All four were released yesterday evening. The fire brigade spokesman praised their bravery. "His colleagues saw that he was in trouble and tried to take him out of what was a very dangerous area," he said. A spokeswoman for the health and safety executive, which is investigating the incident, said the cause of death was not yet known. Liquid nitrogen is capable of causing severe burns and, in the confined space in which the man was working, asphyxiation is also a possible cause of death. The HSE will also be looking at whether the man, who had considerable experience in working with the chemical, died from a medical condition before the spillage. Nicholas Hastie, director of the genetics research laboratory, said liquid nitrogen was used commonly. "We believe we have all the right safety precautions in place." The Edinburgh research laboratory is is one of the MRC's largest units, monitoring genetic factors in disease and in normal and abnormal human development. Liquid nitrogen is used to freeze human cell samples for use in the lab's genetic research. The dead man, who had worked for the MRC for 10 years, was using liquid nitrogen at the time of the accident, but it is not clear what led to the spillage. Professor Hastie said: "This person was very experienced. We have very good safety measures and I have no idea what led to the death." Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001 --------------------------------------------------------------------- Regards, John Crabb, Development Excellence (Product Safety) , NCR Financial Solutions Group Ltd., Discovery Centre, 3 Fulton Road, Dundee, Scotland, DD2 4SW E-Mail :john.cr...@scotland.ncr.com Tel: +44 (0)1382-592289 (direct ). Fax +44 (0)1382-622243. -----Original Message----- From: brian_ku...@leco.com [mailto:brian_ku...@leco.com] Sent: 05 August 2002 16:38 To: emc-p...@majordomo.ieee.org Subject: Liquid Nitrogen Safety Greetings all, We are designing an instrument for laboratory use that will use liquid nitrogen. We will need to design our own dewar system too. Being new to the use of liquid nitrogen we want to make sure we apply all the necessary safety requirements to our product. We have searched the internet and have found the MSDS and several websites that give safety suggestions to avoid burns, over pressure of the container, and asphyxiation. Is there any standards that we should apply other than the normal EN61010-1 and equivilent? Does any country have special requirements that we need to keep in mind? Thanks, Brian Kunde LECO ------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE EMC Society Product Safety Technical Committee emc-pstc discussion list. Visit our web site at: http://www.ewh.ieee.org/soc/emcs/pstc/ To cancel your subscription, send mail to: majord...@ieee.org with the single line: unsubscribe emc-pstc For help, send mail to the list administrators: Ron Pickard: emc-p...@hypercom.com Dave Heald: davehe...@attbi.com For policy questions, send mail to: Richard Nute: ri...@ieee.org Jim Bacher: j.bac...@ieee.org All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://ieeepstc.mindcruiser.com/ Click on "browse" and then "emc-pstc mailing list"
