When I was fresh out of school and had just started my new job as biomedical lab. scientist, one of my tasks was to manually count leukocytes in spinal fluid. We used a blue powder which was located in a small brown bottle on a shelf above the work bench. This bottle had a screw cap, but it was too big and didn’t fit the bottle. All my other colleagues knew that the bottle had to be picked up by the glass itself. I, however, grabbed the screw cap and lifted the bottle from the shelf.
It fell of course down on the bench and a cloud of powder surrounded me. The powder were all over me! Hands, ears, glasses, wrist watch (which was allowed at that time) and hair. My colleagues were quick to tell me not to wash the powder off, but brush it off instead. I did my best but wasn’t overly concerned as it seemed to brush off fairly easy. And then I tried to wash my hands …
Oh. My. Word! My hands turned into a deep purple colour I’ve only experienced in painting classes! I was sent to the shower in the staff wardrobe first. After the shower my now rather cheerful colleagues had to help wash it off and tried all sorts of remedies – acid and chlorine being some of them.
I had a morbid, bluish complexion for a few weeks afterwards! Needless to say that the screw cap was removed and replaced with parafilm the very same day.
Submitted by:
Nina M. Schjelderup
Medical Laboratory Scientist
Norway
