Federal Way, WA: Four hurt in lab explosion

JASON HAGEY; The News Tribune

http://www.tribnet.com/news/local/story/4688959p-4641383c.html

A beaker exploded Friday after a chemistry experiment went awry at Federal Way High School, sending out a fireball that burned three students and a teacher. A fourth student was treated for an anxiety attack, a school official said.

The female teacher and one male student suffered the most serious injuries with "major burns" to their hands, arms and faces, according the Federal Way Fire Department.

They were taken to Harborview  Medical Center in Seattle where they were reported in satisfactory condition Friday afternoon.

Two other male students, who suffered less severe burns, were taken by ambulance to St. Francis Hospital in Federal Way, according to school and hospital officials. They were treated and released Friday afternoon, said St. Francis spokesman Gale Robinette. The fourth student, a girl who was taken to the hospital by her mother, also was treated and released.

The school district was not releasing the identity of any of the victims.  Details of the injuries were not available.

The explosion occurred shortly before 1:30 p.m. in a mixed-grade chemistry class, said Federal Way schools spokeswoman Diane Turner. About 20 to 25 students were present.  The teacher was attempting to perform a common experiment that uses methanol and mineral salts to show how different metals produce different colors of flames.

She told the class, "This is why fireworks turn colors," and proceeded to pour material into a glass beaker, said student Mallory Crist. When nothing happened, the teacher began to add more material, Crist said. That's when the beaker exploded, sending up a flame that "looked like a blow torch."

"It was scary," Crist said. "It was freaky."

Diana Solis, 17, said the flame "just came over to us, it touched all of us."  "I never saw anything like it," she said.

One of the injured students' hair and pants caught fire, Solis added. According to the Federal Way Fire Department, a quick-thinking student used his coat to smother the fire on the teacher and students used three extinguishers to put out the rest of the fire.

Teachers from throughout the school also rushed in to help put out the fire, which was contained to the one classroom, Turner said. A witness told fire investigators that the teacher attempted to ignite methanol in some coffee cup-sized glass beakers. "When they failed to ignite, she began to add more methanol. When she began pouring into the third beaker, there was an explosion as the undetected flame ignited the fresh vapors," fire officials said.

Superintendent Tom Murphy called for an investigation to determine what went wrong, Turner said.  "We have to know and make sure this doesn't happen again," she said. The same experiment was performed successfully the class period before the fire, the Fire Department reported, and Turner described it as a "common, basic science experiment." "We don't understand what happened," she said.

According to the Flinn Chemical and Biological Reference Manual 2002, which was used by the school, the experiment is intended to "demonstrate the characteristics of color of several metal ions with a flame test that is large enough for an entire classroom to observe."

James Kaufman, director of the Laboratory Safety Institute in Natick, Mass., a nonprofit organization that promotes safety in science and education, agreed that the experiment described in Federal Way is a common one, and it is generally safe.  But accidents aren't unheard of, he said. "There is essentially nothing wrong with the experiment," Kaufman said. "However, you are setting things on fire in front of students. It should be done behind a shield."

A shield was not present in the Federal Way classroom, Turner said."None of our classrooms are set up that way," she said.

Students evacuated the school and went to the gymnasium right after the fire broke out, Turner said. Because it happened close to the end of the school day, which is normally 2:10 p.m., buses were already arriving and students were sent home early.