Thank you John for bring this matter again to the attention of the
mailbase. I reported a very similar incident on the 11th May this year
(see below).
'Dear Colleagues,
A salutary tale....
The euphoria engendered by the proposed new UK postal regulations for
specimen transport terminated percussively this morning with a report of
a frozen sample transported in dry ice in a screw sealed secondary Hayes
Dx container.
The explosion occurred on a motor bike on its way to London it broke &
blow the sealed top off the container and tore a hole through the motor
cycle bag.
It might be wise to reacquaint relevant staff with the physics of latent
heat of evaporation, Boyle's gas laws and the ramifications of Newton's
laws of motion.'
In the light of this incident we sent a full report to the MDA, they
decided it was an H&SE matter and passed the report to them. I am still
awaiting a response.
In the light of Mandy Donaldson's report I have again contacted the MDA
and received confirmation that they have spoken to the H&SE who will be
contacting me this morning. I trust 'contact' will result in 'action' on
this occasion.
Stephen P. Halloran
In your e-mail
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: <[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: 07 September 1999 14:50
>Subject: Dry ice in airtight packaging
>
>
>> TO ALL BIOCHEMISTRY LABORATORIES
>>
>> I would like to bring to your attention an incident which
>> occurred in the specimen reception area of Hammersmith
>> Hospital Pathology Centre on the afternoon of Friday 3rd
>> September. A frozen sample was delivered by courier for
>> assay in the SAS laboratory. It was contained in a blue
>> plastic cylinder with an air tight screwtop lid (of the
>> Hayes DX type). The cylinder was a little distorted and
>> the lid was misthreaded. The lid could not be turned by
>> hand. As reception staff attempted to remove the lid by
>> application of force the package exploded and the lid
>> shattered. The lid fragments and contents were spread
>> across about 30 square metres of lab and the cylindical
>> container shot up through the lab ceiling with enough
>> force to puncture a perfect circle in a ceiling tile. We
>> were very lucky that none of the lab staff were hurt.
>> You will also be pleased to know that as a responsible SAS
>> lab we rescued the sample for assay!
>>
>> In retrospect we realised the container must have been
>> packed with dry ice - a fact confirmed by the sender with
>> many apologies. As postal regulations are changing this
>> type of packaging is becoming common place in the
>> 'sendaway' section of labs. As senders of samples we
>> would urge you to impress on your staff the danger of
>> packaging dry ice in airtight contaners (especially if
>> they are designed to withstand high pressure). If you
>> are a laboratory receiving frozen samples we suggest
>> extreme caution if such a sample is delivered to you. Our
>> safety department is currently researching a policy for
>> dealing with such a package should we receive another. If
>> you have any suggestions or have had a similar experience
>> I would be very pleased to hear from you.
>> Dr Mandy Donaldson
>> Principal Clinical Scientist.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
>
>----------------------- Internet Header --------------------------------
>Sender: [log in to unmask]
>Received: from mailout1.mailbase.ac.uk (mailout1.mailbase.ac.uk
>[128.240.226.11])
> by spdmgaad.compuserve.com (8.9.3/8.9.3/SUN-1.5) with ESMTP id KAA26188;
> Wed, 8 Sep 1999 10:01:54 -0400 (EDT)
>Received: from naga.mailbase.ac.uk (naga.mailbase.ac.uk [128.240.226.3])
> by mailout1.mailbase.ac.uk (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id PAA03422;
> Wed, 8 Sep 1999 15:00:57 +0100 (BST)
>Received: (from daemon@localhost)
> by naga.mailbase.ac.uk (8.8.x/Mailbase) id OAA28981;
> Wed, 8 Sep 1999 14:57:44 +0100 (BST)
>Received: from rhenium.btinternet.com (rhenium.btinternet.com
>[194.73.73.93])
> by naga.mailbase.ac.uk (8.8.x/Mailbase) with ESMTP id OAA28967;
> Wed, 8 Sep 1999 14:57:41 +0100 (BST)
>Received: from [62.6.1.155] (helo=default)
> by rhenium.btinternet.com with smtp (Exim 2.05 #1)
> id 11OiEF-0001JO-00
> for [log in to unmask]; Wed, 8 Sep 1999 14:57:40 +0100
>Message-ID: <000a01befa02$92ef7dc0$9b01063e@default>
>Date: Wed, 8 Sep 1999 15:00:56 +0100
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>X-Priority: 3
>X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
>X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2314.1300
>X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300
>Subject: Fw: Dry ice in airtight packaging
>From: "John O'Connor" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: "ACB" <[log in to unmask]>
>X-List: [log in to unmask]
>X-Unsub: To leave, send text 'leave acb-clin-chem-gen' to
>[log in to unmask]
>X-List-Unsubscribe:
><mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: "John O'Connor" <[log in to unmask]>
>Sender: [log in to unmask]
>Errors-To: [log in to unmask]
>Precedence: list
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|