A beaker not venting properly caused the Small Animal Hospital at the College of Veterinary Medicine to be evacuated for a brief time Wednesday morning.

According to Keith Nichols, the director of news and communications for the University, the Small Animal Hospital was evacuated for about 15 minutes after the beaker exploded, at about 10 a.m.  The building was evacuated only as a precaution.  

According to David Green, the director of college communications for CVM, there was no fire and no contamination.

“Two people were working in a lab,” Green said.  “One is a student and one is a lab technician.  They were heating a beaker that is supposed to vent automatically.  For some reason, the beaker wasn’t venting properly.  Because of this, the beaker, for lack of a better word, exploded.  When it did, smoke was generated, causing the fire alarm to go off and the building to be evacuated.”

As is standard procedure, a hazardous materials team was called in to inspect the facility.

“A HazMat team is called in anytime there is an alarm for a laboratory,” Green said.  “The HazMat team did inspect the room and did not find any contamination issues.”

Green said the explosion was small and did not damage the facility.

“It wasn’t really an explosion,” Green said.  “The beaker shattered while it was being heated.  The student suffered non-life threatening injuries but was taken to the hospital for care.”

Capt. Jon Barnwell, patrol division commander with Campus Police, said the lab was the only area affected by the explosion of the beaker.

“No other area outside of the lab was affected by the incident,” Barnwell said.

Barnwell said the female graduate student was heating the beaker when it shattered.

“Shards of glass cut the student’s face,” Barnwell said.  “The injuries were not life- threatening, but she was transported to the hospital for treatment.”

Green said there was no disruption to business at the Vet School, and it is not an unusual occurrence for smoke detectors to go off at the Vet School.

“This happens quite a bit,” Green said.  “Anytime there is any smoke, the fire alarms go off to evacuate the building.  I didn’t even realize anything was going on until the building had been evacuated, and even then, it wasn’t a big thing.”