Friday, March 11, 2016

Chemical blast leaves 1 graduate student hurt at Texas Tech


Posted: March 10, 2016 - 3:49pm | Updated: March 11, 2016 - 12:15am


Brad Tollefson / A-J Media
Emergency personnel cart a student out of the Texas Tech Chemistry Building on Thursday, March 10, 2016, after an explosion.




By SARAH RAFIQUE AND JORDAN SIGLER
A-J MEDIA



One person suffered minor injuries in what Texas Tech officials are describing as a minor explosion Thursday afternoon in the Texas Tech Chemistry Building.

The incident was kept to one room that sustained no damage, and the injured graduate student underwent a hazmat shower, according to Texas Tech spokesman Chris Cook.

“It was isolated to his physical body, minor abrasions, minor scrapes,” he said.

The student was carted into an ambulance and taken to a hospital.

It was not immediately clear what prompted the explosion or what chemical or chemicals were involved.

It was not clear if the student was supervised or not, Cook said

Lubbock Fire Rescue crews responded to the scene and evacuated students from the building.

Crews were responding to the area about 3:45 p.m.

The area was blocked off with tape as crews worked to make sure the site was safe for students to return, said Cook.

Thursday’s incident is not the first explosion to have rocked the Tech campus. In January 2010, a doctoral student lost three fingers, injured an eye and suffered burns to his face and hands after an explosion in a Tech lab.

Tech investigators linked that explosion to 20 surrounding violations of the university’s safety policy, according to A-J Media archives.

It prompted an “overhaul” in lab safety procedures.

During a Board of Regent meeting in February 2014, Tech officials heard the results of an internal investigation into lab safety on campus.

At the time, Kimberly Turner, chief audit executive, reported the university had made efforts to promote lab safety, such as establishing a faculty committee to evaluate campus labs and increasing safety training among faculty and students.

A number of other explosions have taken place within the past five years, including one last February when four people were taken to a hospital with minor injuries after an explosion believed to be caused by a chemical waste product occurred in the Chemistry Building.

There was also an explosion in the Chemistry and Biochemistry Building in October 2011, followed by a second explosion two weeks later in the Nanotechnology Building. No one was injured in either incident.