985 Graduate Students Experience Lab Accidents: It's not just safety awareness that needs to be emphasized

Editor's Note

On the evening of October 24, the official microblog of Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics issued a notice that at 15:52 on the same day, the materials laboratory of the College of Materials Science and Technology of the General Road Campus of China Southern Airlines exploded, causing a total of 2 deaths and 9 injuries.

After the incident, Luo Yi, a graduate student of a 985 university in Shanghai who had personally experienced the laboratory accident (anonymous at request), posted an article expressing some views on the safety of the university laboratory.

He believes that in addition to repeatedly emphasizing the improvement of students' safety awareness, for young master's and doctoral students in colleges and universities, there is a need for stricter experimental operation training and assessment and legal rights protection.

The following is the full text, which is authorized by Science Network.

Some observations on the safety of laboratories in universities

I am a master student in Shanghai 985.

Last year in the materials laboratory, I had an accident that happened to operate an experimental instrument alone for the first time, resulting in an open fracture of my finger. At the time of the incident, the fingers were completely deformed, and the bones of the index finger were pierced through the fingers. Incomplete recovery of function after surgery results in the inability of the index finger to bend autonomously.

My situation is nothing compared to these students, and I am very sad to see these news.

I was particularly heartbroken and despaired about how to avoid such a thing from happening again. Because every time such a thing happens, the so-called attention is not a cure for the symptoms.

Many people may not know that the safety risk of some laboratories in universities is 100 times that of chemical plants. Unlike chemical plants, chemical plants have strict training and assessment for front-line workers on the job, as well as labor law protection such as work injury insurance. The young master's and doctoral students in colleges and universities not only do not have strict training and assessment, but also do not have any legal protection.

This is a joke of life for young students who live every day in an environment a hundred times more dangerous than a chemical plant. Most of the experiments are just the brothers and sisters with the students to do a few times, the church can be.

In my personal observation, the school is not without experimental training for students, but it is basically limited to the operation of some very expensive experimental equipment - such as electron microscopes, etc., and there is a training assessment of autonomous operation certificates.

These can only be experimented independently without the guidance of professional teachers if they have obtained an autonomous operation certificate. But this kind of training does not exist in heavy machinery that can easily hurt people. Maybe because these instruments don't hurt students.

Every time something like this happens, the usual measure is to hold safety lectures to raise students' safety awareness.

But people can never avoid danger by relying on state and ideological awareness, but need the protection of institutional processes. If the doctor ensures the sterility of the operating room by telling himself to be hygienic, the probability of surgical infection will be greatly improved.

My own case has also been listed as one of the cases of safety lectures, and it is said that I accidentally caused such an accident.

But in fact, as a novice, I am especially cautious about experimenting, because I have not yet reached the indifference of old students. The accident at the time was due to the first time I operated heavy machinery that I was not familiar with alone, and I did not think it was caused by carelessness.

Turning to the legal perspective, my personal experience made me realize that the safety protection of graduate students is in a legal gray area.

When the doctor suggested that I have a disability assessment, I found out that the students did not fall into the category of work injuries at all, because there was no labor contract. Graduate students are no longer like elementary and junior high school students, and schools are obliged to take responsibility for what happens to minors in their students.

So I learned that when something like this happens, there is no compensation at all without going through legal proceedings. For example, in the recent case of injury to the laboratory of a university in Shanghai, a university re-filed a lawsuit because it did not recognize the compensation for students at that time.

It can be seen that some universities do not believe that the university should be held responsible for such incidents. However, the court ultimately ruled that he lost the case, which also proved the empathy of the judicial community.

Writing these is really hoping to let some people see that with their own strength, there will be no change. There are also many laboratory accidents that have not attracted attention. If young students don't exchange their lives for a little change, it is really too chilling to avoid a similar disaster from happening again.

In a personal opinion, more stringent experimental operation training and assessment and legal rights protection are very necessary.

Students entering the lab should be treated with at least a standard procedure for front-line workers. It is far from enough to rely on students to teach students to do experiments, to sound the ideological alarm bell for students.

And for many researchers, staying up late to do experiments and operating high-risk instruments under fatigue is commonplace. Due to its cheap price and small number of people, the night laboratory is also a popular choice for many students and researchers, and there is no security officer or teacher present during this time period.

I hope that more people can see the truth of the university laboratory and can have practical ways to improve.