• Question: What are the dangers in your job?

    Asked by tomcrilly to Duncan, Grant, Julie, Nik, Rachel on 13 Mar 2013. This question was also asked by gordonator.
    • Photo: Rachel Edwards-Stuart

      Rachel Edwards-Stuart answered on 13 Mar 2013:

      I work with food, so if it is contaminated or not cooked properly there is a risk of food poisoning. I also work with liquid nitrogen, which can get down to temperatures of around minus 200 degrees. It can therefore freeze your hand, or if it gets in your eye it could make you blind. I also use lots of mixers and hand blenders, which have sharp blades that can cut you if not used properly. So I guess there are a lot of dangers in my job! But I always follow manufacturers instructions and work carefully.

    • Photo: Grant Campbell

      Grant Campbell answered on 13 Mar 2013:

      I use roller mills to study wheat and mixers to study bread – if I wasn’t careful they could damage me. I often mix bread dough under pressure, and anything under pressure can be hazardous. Some of the chemicals I use, like xylene, are flammable and can cause cancer, so I use them in a fume cupboard and avoid sources of ignition. Like Rachel, I have often used liquid nitrogen, which can freeze you or suffocate you. (A little known hazard of liquid nitrogen, for those of us who wear a wedding ring, is if liquid nitrogen got into your ring, it would shrink and possibly cut your finger off! So I always remove my wedding ring if working with liquid nitrogen.) But before we do any experiments we have to think through the risks and hazards in advance, to try to reduce or remove risks, and to ensure the dangers are identified and controlled properly.

    • Photo: Julie Bland

      Julie Bland answered on 15 Mar 2013:

      I use a lot of sulfuric acid to look at the composition of the cheese which can be really dangerous (I have a very small scar on my leg because a small drop went of my lab coat and I didn’t see it so it went through the lab coat, my jean and then on my skin but manage to rinse it quickly!)
      I also use a lot of big instrument to make cheese especially a miller which I in fact finish in hospital Wednesday because my finger got caught in it (but I am ok and so will be my finger!).
      Sound like I am hurting myself all the time but in fact those arrive over several years.
      The importance is too always concentrate and be careful! Plus having good training! The acid burn would have been worse if I didn’t know what to do to rinse it and for the miller it will now be change to another one more safe (which doesn’t start unexpectedly!).

    • Photo: Duncan Gaskin

      Duncan Gaskin answered on 15 Mar 2013:

      I use a range of chemicals that can hurt you if you get them on you or breathe the fumes, as well as working with a variety of bacteria that if you were to get them in a cut or in your mouth they might make you very ill (and possibly kill you!), and things like liquid nitrogen and dry ice (solid carbon dioxide) which are very cold and can ‘burn’ you. Also a few bits of equipment that can hurt you if you don’t use them properly.

      So it sounds rather dangerous! But the secret is to make sure you take the right precautions to minimize the danger. So we wear the right personal protective equipment (like lab coats, gloves and eye protection), use special cabinets to keep the bacteria away from us, and only use equipment when you have been trained how to do so correctly. We always think about the risks and dangers of any experiment before we start so that we can work safely.
      Accidents can and do happen so we have plans to cope with them if they do.

      But no matter how careful you are things can still go wrong – I had to hit a frozen guava with a hammer to chip bits off it. I wore leather gloves and a full face visor, but it was summer and hot so I’d rolled my sleeves up…. and yes I managed to cut my arm with a piece of frozen guava shrapnel!!!

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