HONOLULU (AP) – A visiting researcher who lost an arm last month in a laboratory explosion at the University of Hawaii told fire investigators the blast occurred after she turned off a digital pressure gauge she was using to check the pressure in a gas cylinder.
A report released by the Honolulu Fire Department on Monday said the researcher told investigators she didn’t hear gas leaking before the explosion. Photos in the report showed torn pieces of a metal gas cylinder sitting on a floor strewn with debris.
Compressed hydrogen, carbon dioxide and oxygen detonated inside an air tank in the laboratory, fire investigators said in their report. Fire investigators concluded the blast was an accident.
The school has hired the University of California Center for Laboratory Safety to investigate. School spokesman Dan Meisenzahl said more details about the explosion would become known when this probe is completed, which he said was expected by the end of the month.
Fire investigators say the body of the gauge is missing, but Meisenzahl said the school knows the make and model of the gauge. He said it’s not a question of whether this particular gauge was faulty but whether the gauge was being appropriately used.