HONOLULU (AP) – A laboratory explosion at the University of Hawaii that resulted in a researcher losing her arm was likely caused by static electricity, according to an independent investigation.
The University of California Center for Laboratory Safety, which handled the investigation, released its results Friday.
The explosion that occurred in March was initially thought to have been caused by a faulty pressure gauge, but the investigators said static electricity released into a tank most likely caused the explosion, said Michael Bruno, vice chancellor for research at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
“By all accounts and from everything that we know so far, there were many, many efforts to make this process as safe as possible, and in fact the exact same experiment essentially had been conducted 10 or perhaps 11 times prior to this accident occurring,” Bruno said.
The researcher had told fire department investigators she would get shocked on occasion when touching the tank. She reported that to the professor who hired her to conduct research into bioplastics and biofuels, but he told her not to worry about it.