Laboratory Safety/Emergency Response

Emergencies are unplanned events that could pose a hazard to life and property. Laboratories are susceptible to emergency events as they are often stocked with various hazardous chemicals or are home to specialized equipment that potentially has hazardous properties. Even though emergencies are unplanned, there are ways to plan for accidents, and in many jurisdictions emergency planning is a required part of laboratory certification and training for laboratory workers. Emergency plans, such as evacuation and spill response plans, are made readily available to visitors and laboratory workers to keep them prepared and able to respond in such an event.^[1]

Some examples of emergency situations are:

• Fires
• Chemical spills
• Needle sticks
• Explosions
• Radioactive material exposures
• Fume hood or exhaust system failures
• Pathogen exposures
• Power outages

This is not an exhaustive list, and an emergency may include any number of hazardous events occuring at once. Practicing what to do in the event of an emergency, as detailed in a site-specific emergency response plan, will make workers more able to effectively respond in a real emergency situation. Note that in a life-threatening situation, no one is expected to risk their life to help others in an emergency unless they are specifically trained and prepared to do so.^[2] It is prudent to evacuate if the situation is out of your control; for example, when a small fire grows too large to stop using a portable fire extinguisher.