Chemistry students in Georgia in accident; PPE prevented major injuries

Via the Marietta Daily Journal: 

Two female Marietta High School students received chemical burns due to an accident in a chemistry lab Thursday afternoon, Principal Marvin Crumbs announced in a message to families.

Around 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Marietta Superintendent Grant Rivera told the MDJ that both students were in the process of being discharged from a local hospital.

The students, who Rivera said were upperclassmen, were burned when a “routine lab experiment” using sulfuric acid and magnesium went awry.

“Based on feedback from the teacher, the concentration of the sulfuric acid may have been too high, because the reaction occurred quicker and more abruptly than expected,” Rivera said. “As a result, the acid splattered and got on both the student conducting the experiment, as well as … a child in the lab at a table nearby.”

Students were wearing the required safety gear including aprons and goggles, Rivera said, and under the direct supervision of a teacher.

Following the accident, all safety protocols were followed, Rivera said, including placing the injured students underneath an emergency shower in the lab, followed by an immediate response from administrators and emergency services personnel.

“Obviously, upon reflection … we recognize that we have to have greater caution around higher concentrations of chemicals,” Rivera said. “So we will meet with the teacher, meet with the science department, to determine, as we would with any situation, 'What do we need to learn from this?' … We train for it, but it's highly unusual, and obviously we do not want it to happen again.”

I've done this experiment - guessing that someone added something a bit too quick. Nice to see that the students had PPE on.