Tragedy: A graduating senior at Yale died in lab accident

Parents Forum
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<p>There’s an article here about hair safety (unrelated to the Yale event) - that suggests another possibility:
[Proper</a> Hair Care in a Machine Shop](<a href=“http://www.toolboxtopics.com/Contributed/Proper%20Hair%20Care.htm]Proper”>http://www.toolboxtopics.com/Contributed/Proper%20Hair%20Care.htm)</p>

<p>It’s possible that the young woman did have her hair tied back in a pony tail, but that her hair/pony tail was so long that it still got caught, perhaps when she leaned forward over the machine. That would be a problem that could happen with someone who perhaps put their hair in a long braid rather than a bun. </p>

<p>So it could be that the young woman did take some precaution… but not enough. </p>

<p>(My personal opinion is that students should not have have access to the machine shop outside of hours that it was staffed. I’m not sure the young woman was working as late as 2:30 am – there is no indication how much time passed after the accident before the other students found her – but this is just one of those areas where I don’t think there should ever be one person alone in the room. Too much can go wrong.)</p>

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<p>When I was in 7th grade, a chunk of my loose hair got yanked out by a buffing machine (spins like a lathe) during a shop class. I was chatting and laughing away with a girlfriend who was working at the machine. My little bald spot was an attraction throughout the school for a few days.</p>

<p>Needless to say, this makes me appreciate how lucky I was to have gotten off with just a heavy dose of embarrassment. It never occurred to me or my parents to blame the school or the seasoned shop teacher for my careless behavior, although they no doubt changed rules in the shop after that. I think safety precautions have come a long way in the nearly 40 years since but you can’t protect against every eventuality and there will always be freak accidents.</p>

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<p>I work with industrial health and safety, and I can say that accidents like this can happen in a lot of ways, and it’s premature to say too much without knowing the facts. The guards on the device could be inadequate, the training may have been inadequate, the operational rules may be inadequate, the student may have made a simple mistake, the student may have failed to follow safety rules, the machine may have been defective (i.e., turned on unexpectedly), some freakish set of circumstances may have happened (i.e., she might have slipped and fallen into the machine). Yale is doing a review, as well they should, and it may well be that nobody will be allowed to use this kind of machinery alone anymore.</p>

<p>This has nothing to do with what kind of institution this is, or how smart anybody is. This kind of thing can happen to anybody, and there can be many causes. Sometimes very intelligent and experienced people do inexplicable things, and sometimes equipment malfunctions in unexpected ways.</p>

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<p>I imagine both. An important part of understanding iterative design and how to create components which can be easily made is trying to make them yourself. Alternately, I know for my school it costs me $10 an hour to use an amazingly stocked/staffed shop while if I were to use my department’s machinist it would be closer to $75 an hour and I would need to create a full drawing ahead of time and have to wait a week or more to get my part/mold/jig. I know in my current research group those on the side with more funding get all of their stuff professionally machined while those of us with less funding have to do all of our own machining.</p>

<p>Also, as the safety officer for this floor of my building, I have to say that sometimes extra safety rules actually make labs less safe. In our case, we tend to use a lot of extension cords since there’s not adequate power provided in many parts of our labs. We used to use cable runners on the floor, but the fire department says that makes them a hazard. So, instead, we ran them over the metal trusses in the ceiling (no drop ceiling, so they weren’t hidden or being obstructed by anything else). This was also a hazard. So now we have them just lying free as a tripping hazard in the lab, but the fire department is happy since they can now be classified as a “temporary” fixture in the lab and so aren’t a fire hazard!</p>

<p>Finally, about the UCLA graduate student from a year or two ago. One of the biggest problems was that once she caught on fire she ran away from the chemical shower right next to her, and her labmate tried to put out the fire by filling up a 250ml beaker with water from a faucet and throwing it on her instead of directing her to the chemical shower. It’s generally not just one mistake that causes a tragedy such as this, but a series of mistakes that all fall into the right place.</p>

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<p>such an awful, awful event. I can only imagine with her family and friends are going through.</p>

<p>for what it’s worth, my GF (well, fiancee now) worked in the architecture shop at Cornell where they use many similar tools including a lathe. After I mentioned this tragedy she noted that it doesn’t sound like the student was following standard safety procedures - i.e. things like headphone cords, hoodies with draw strings, loose hair, scarves, etc. are prohibited while operating the machinery.</p>

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<p>Every shop and lab course has given me instructions on safety. There are always signs posted by machines, gas valves, and places where the safety equipment is stored. Yes, after time, you become desensitized but you shouldn’t forget the power of lab equipment. It seems that this woman forgot. It is sad, but she was irresponsible about it. Yale is not at fault.</p>

<p>I’m taking a sculpture class right now. It meets in a wood shop/foundry area. We’ve sculpted with wood and have just casted bronze for our semester projects. If we were being unsafe, we would have been kicked out of the class. As far as supervision, you can only use the machines if our professor or the shop manager is there and you have completed training (and for certain machines, like the lathe, we need to be certified to use that machine specifically- just because you can use a belt sander doesn’t mean you can use a lathe). If one of them isn’t there, the electricity that runs to the machines is off and the key to turn it on is locked away. A similar policy should be enacted everywhere (and I don’t go to HYPSM- I go to Binghamton, a state school) to prevent a case like this (late night shop use) from occurring. </p>

<p>A policy change may be warranted, but this is not Yale’s fault. Yale could be held responsible if another incident happens like this and no policy change occurred.</p>

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<p>caemin: Don’t you think that you are contradicting yourself.
If your state school Binghamton has the supervision policy for operating Lathe as mentioned

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<p>So either Yale didn’t have the supervision policy to begin with for machine like Lathe or someone didn’t follow the policy, so isn’t your following statement is contradictory then

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<p>You want another such incident to happen before asking questions about any negligence on part of Yale.</p>

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No, POIH. No on WANTS another accident to occur. An attorney can explain this better than I can, but in general, it means that the school now has knowledge of the risk, and if they fail to take due caution to try to prevent another incident and one occurred, then they could be considered negligent.
Please.stop.posting.</p>

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<p>Yale is performing a comprehensive safety review. If I ran the shop at any other college, I’d be running one, too. I guarantee you that whatever was the cause of this accident, no matter how freaky, or whose fault it is, Yale will make changes in some of its safety practices–whether it’s rules, training, or equipment will depend on what the findings are.</p>

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<p>I thought caemin’s post was really good. One positive outcome of an incident like this is that school’s evaluate their policies to see if they could make improvements to prevent future tragedies.</p>

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<p>As Jim Kim, the president of Dartmouth said recently, “What school has the best alcohol policy in place? The school that just experienced a death.”</p>

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<p>Without the facts none of us knows who’s really at fault in this - everything here has been conjecture and assumptions so far. It’s possible Yale was at fault in this or the student was at fault in this or some portion of each. No one will know until all of the facts come out and the possible corrective actions, if any, can be determined. Once that’s done then maybe other colleges will be able to benefit from the experience and analysis results and maybe other students will have less exposure. </p>

<p>Once again, it’s completely irrelevant that this happened to occur at Yale versus some other college. I doubt there was anything that unique about the situation at Yale (but we won’t know until we know what the situation actually was) other than some possibly inherent aspects such as whether Yale has more equipment in its labs, more students using the equipment, and students using the equipment more extensively which simply increases the odds that something will eventually happen.</p>

<p>Regarding supervision in the lab - no one knows whether it would have even had an impact on this event. Frankly, if someone’s hair or clothing gets caught in a lathe there could be 10 supervisors standing within 2 feet of the person and they wouldn’t be able to stop the accident from happening. The only thing they might have been able to do is to stop a person from using the equipment in the first place if not properly dressed and prepared. These accidents generally happen within the space of a few seconds at most.</p>

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<p>“A policy change may be warranted, but this is not Yale’s fault. Yale could be held responsible if another incident happens like this and no policy change occurred.”</p>

<p>Yale will be held responsible if the ongoing OSHA investigation determines so. In case of the accident at UCLA, OSHA found multiple violations of safety in that particular lab, but no corrections had been done by the due date. I agree with the poster who said that many OSHA regulations are written in blood.</p>

<p>For anyone who is not familiar with the UCLA tragedy I keep referring to, here is a link to a pretty detailed description of what happened at UCLA:</p>

<p>[Deadly</a> UCLA Lab Fire Leaves Haunting Questions - Lab Manager Magazine](<a href=“Lab Manager | Run Your Lab Like a Business | Lab Manager”>Lab Manager | Run Your Lab Like a Business | Lab Manager)</p>

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<p>jym626:

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<p>See, I again forget whom I’m talking too. I forget that I’m posting on a closed dictatorship discussion board. Where I can’t have a differing opinion because if I’ve then -

  • I live in a weired world (I believe that Yale is responsible for the student death)
  • I’m either a snob or elitist (Don’t think Community College to be at same level as Yale)
  • I’ve a hidden agenda (bashing Yale here)</p>

<p>I’m not sure why we call ourselves a democratic country if one can’t even say something that comes to their mind. </p>

<p>High time that you grow up jym626.</p>

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You’re jumping the gun to lay the blame at her feet before the investigation is completed. I understand that you want it to be her fault, because then you, being <em>more responsible</em> would never fall prey to such an occurrence. The truth is, as Hunt pointed out, these things can happen in strange ways.</p>

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<p>You don’t understand what you have conveyed to the parent of that girl by saying the above. You are actually telling them see you sent your dumb DD to Yale spending $200K and she was still irresponsible and dumb enough to not know that she need to tie her hair before operating that machinery.</p>

<p>Yale can’t be at fault you moron your DD was dumb and accept it.</p>

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<p>POIH - very, very smart people make dumb mistakes. You are the only one who is projecting on this one, that the parents would take it to this level.</p>

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<p>teriwtt: True mistakes can be made but I’ll side with an intelligent person not making a dumb mistake over a University taking all the safety precautions.</p>

<p>There is a far greater probability that Yale is at fault than the student. I’ve more confidence in the student than with the University if such a dumb accident can take place.</p>

<p>I’m projecting on this one because this is how I take it. If people without even going through the fact says it’s the girl’s fault then they are questioning the intelligence of the girl.</p>

<p>I’ve high respect for a girl who at 1 a.m. working hard in the lab at an institute like Yale. What ever might be the case, dying in such a dumb accident point me to the lapses on Yale part and not on girl part.</p>

<p>Yale is absolutely responsible for this dumb accident.</p>

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<p>The OSHA investigation has nothing to do with the possible liability in a civil suit for negligence. OSHA may fine Yale and require changes in procedures but liability in court is unrelated to any OSHA findings. </p>

<p>Although I am not specialized in tort law, even a first year law school student could recite the standard for negligence that would apply in a case such as this. Five elements will need to be proven by a preponderance of the evidence to establish liability. </p>

<p>Duty of care: Did Yale have a duty of care for the safety of this student? This is clearly the case. The machine shop was in a university building supervised by university personnel. </p>

<p>Breach of duty: Did Yale breach their duty of care in this instance? This is a more difficult point. If trained personnel is always present during normal hours, is the absence of such personnel at night a breach of Yale’s duty of care. Yale does not need to have knowingly acted to endanger the safety of the student and may very well have believed their safety policies were reasonable. But that is irrelevant. The test is an objective test. If a reasonable person could conclude that the risks attached to an unsupervised machine shop operation were substantial then Yale would have breached their duty of care. This would most likely involve outside safety experts who would testify. Policies at other similar facilities may be relevant, especially if many forbid operation by unsupervised students. The key issue is whether the danger was foreseeable. </p>

<p>Direct Cause: Did Yale’s actions or inaction (or omissions) cause or contribute to the death of student. This is a “but-for” argument, i.e. but for the absence of supervisory personnel, the student would not have died. Generally, equipment such as lathes have remote kill switches which can activated within seconds of an accident. If as the coroner’s initial report is confirmed that the student was strangled by her own hair as opposed to instantly killed, then most likely shutting power to the equipment could have prevented her death. This will be a factual determination. </p>

<p>Proximate cause: Sometimes accidents can simply not be foreseen in which case it may not be possible to set up any preventive measures. This is not the case here where the equipment was known to be dangerous and accidents with lathes are relatively common. </p>

<p>Damages: Here the damages are obvious. </p>

<p>The extent to which the student’s negligence contributed to the accident may affect the amount of potential damages, not necessarily actual liability. Under Connecticut law, even if Yale and the student are found to share 50/50 in the responsibility for the accident, Yale is still liable although the recovery will be less than if the accident had been entirely Yale’s fault.</p>

<p>If a negligence case is brought by the family of the victim against Yale (which is highly likely), it will most likely be settled out of court, because of the high potential for negative publicity. Any settlement will be costly but universities typically have insurance for such events. Safety procedures will also be revised. I predict unsupervised nighttime operation will be forbidden. They key supervisor for the facility should also be fired.</p>

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<p>This back-and-forth bickering between POIH and various posters is really disrespectful in light of the fact someone just died. Take the arguments on elitism and snobbery to another thread. </p>

<p>I’ve never used a lathe. I wonder if someone else could have saved her if they were in the room. I suspect not.</p>