Anyone ever screw up big time while working in the lab...

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I like flame stories but unfortunately, have none of my own. However, I will share two that I've heard.

1) A guy in my o-chem lab dropped a boiling chip into hot ether. Fwoosh! Flame. Of course, the prof was out of the lab at the time... The fire extinguisher was ineffective at putting out the fire, so the TA wound up using the fire blanket and burning holes in it. All in all, it made a big mess!

2) An MSTP rotator in my lab, who thought himself above we mere staff who've been in biomedical research for six years, put a flaming glass bacteria spreader into a plastic beaker of ethanol. Fwoosh! Flame. And melted plastic. I laughed.

My big screw up was swapping the labels on two sets of PCR products and all subsequent downstream steps and sequences. This, working under incredible time pressure. I barely missed getting fired. I've never broken anything though...
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So if ever I win the lottery the winnings are already spent. I once used most of the tools in the machine lab with wood - that's really ****ty to do to machines that are supposed to be used on metal only. I still feel bad about it. I didn't clean up the last day because I was late and my project was due so everyone found out that I had been breaking the rules. So when I'm rich I'm going to buy UVM a new machine shop.

Oh and I almost broke an autoclave.
 
Spilled some hydrochloric acid on my pants during chem lab and my skin started burning really bad (it felt like fire)but at the same time I didn't feel like taking my pants off in front of everyone and being hosed down in the shower. Surprisingly, the distribution of the acid splash was perfect, the acid ate through the jeans and the holes were placed meticulously like an Abercrombie Fitch pair (the ones where you pay money to buy hole filled rugged jeans) and I got a couple of compliments on how cool they looked.
 
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I love these sorts of threads!

There was one graduate student in our lab who has some misconception about the phases of change through which substances go (liquid, solid, gas... I'm not making much sense here.....). Upon receiving a large shipment of cold items, she decided she should place the large block of dry ice that came in the shipment in the sink so that when it melts, 'it doesn't get water' all over the place.

Later that day. Yasargil is quietly workin' in the back part of the lab curing some fantastical medical disorder of testicular size, when an enourmouse POW/CRACK occurs. It was then that I realized Jesus had a middle name, "Jesus H. Christ! What the hell was that?!!"

Her so called melting dry ice fractured the whole damn lab sink. Fissure. The cold killed the sink. But at least 'water' didnt get on the floor from that 'melting ice.'
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Getting a PhD.... priceless. Earning a PhD.... damn hard work. Becoming employed with a PhD.... huh? is that possible?
 
Ok, so not up to par with these other posts, but its something.
We have our hood lined with that absorptive shiznet and it is all nasty with spilt stuff. So I am working in the hood and I make my contribution by spillin' some liquid too(I dont remember what it was) and the absorbant bench protector crap just went up in flames! In the hood so just closed it.
That was kinda cool considerin' that I spilt a liquid - gotta love those exothermic reactions!

Also, found out that someone was creating life in the front anteroom of one of our labs. The janitorial service discarded the spent undergarmets. I threw out the chairs. Chairs for gawds sake! When there was a bench right there.:idea:

Well, research can get lonely some nights...:sleep:

(i feel dirty, sorry everyone)
 
Last month, I completely destroyed an IR machine...I drowned the machine with ethanol while trying to clean it. For some reason, ever since this happened, all the other students are getting wrong IR results;). Hssshhh, don't tell anyone, my prof. currently thinks that a graduate student is responsible...
 
CTT said:
A chem professor told me that they used to use HF way to casually in the physics building. Apparently someone there "discovered" that it was an excellent glass cleaner (of course, it removes a couple micrometers of the glass) and its use spread through out the building until one of the Profs told everybody to stop via email. At the height of the scandal, it was being used as a surface cleaner!
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Oh wow.

I've had a billion labs like the rest of the premedders here, and I've yet to even see the stuff laying around.
 
I had a solution with sulfuric and acetic acid explode all over me. I had burns on my face and neck and had to be taken the health center where they ran a freaking freezing shower on me for 30 minutes and then transported me to the hospital for 'observation' in case I inhaled any of the gases.
The acetic acid made me and the clothes smell awful forever and the sulfuric burned me. Funny now, not back then, especially to the PI!!!
Someone turned my hotplate on! I know I didn't! So, I still say it is not my fault!
 
This thread is exactly why pre-meds should NOT be encouraged to do research. I don't have any huge mistake that I have made, I just generally screw up about 5 minor things every single day.
 
PhillyMD2006 said:
I think I might have broken the autoclave. Numerous people have attempted to turn it off, but there is steam spewing from it and the entire floor is a cool 85 degrees. Oops. Good thing I'm going to med school.
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Haha, awesome. Good thing you already suckered the PI into writing that glowing LOR ;)
 
This thread is ****ing amazing.

Anyone ever work in a cell lab? Well right before a long break, this was maybe a thursday, the instructor had a vial of cell media which she thought might possibly be contaminated. She told me to incubate it to see if it was contaminated.

I stuck the whole vile (~ .5L) in the incubator, and then left the lab. I didn't even think about how I wasn't going to return for another week.

When I arrived in the lab the following week, I went to her office, and she quitely said "Come with me".

We walk out of that building, all the way over to the other building with the incubator. She didn't say a word to me the entire time. We go into the lab. She says to me "I'm going to give you three guesses on what you did wrong".

Knowing that shes anal about sterylization, I thought that I didn't wipe something down or forgot to put parafilm on a container. Needless to say I didn't figure it out.

She walked over to the incubator and opened it, and a ****ing tree size mass of mold had grown and expanded EVERYWHERE. It actually grew out of the container and onto the walls and other shelves.

It took me days to clean it out, not to mention everyone who had a sample in that container probably lost it.



Apparently I should have incubated about a ml in a petri dish.


I hate cell labs.
 
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I had one that made me laugh all day long thinking about it.

So I was given the task of following the guidebook on extracting E.Coli DNA/purifying it. So I'm following the steps and would ask the grad student anything I wasn't sure about. Now I had done something similar before but the grad student did most of it while I just tried to absorb the process.

So anyway I'm up to the part where I have to push the liquid that is mixed with white precipitate out of the stopper and into a small test tube. So I do it but I'm actually holding the test tube in my and so I accidentally tilt it at an angle and my 3-hr worth of product is spilled on the lab bench.

So I quickly try to scoop up the liquid by pushing it towards the edge and put it back into the tube. I managed to get most of it and then place the tube on the desk. However I don't know how, but I again spill it over. At this point I'm burning up with frustration and guilt of screwing this whole thing up and I again get and scoop it up/

And By God, I kid you not, I knock it over a third time. I was literally about to just walk out of the lab ready to punch the next person I saw. So I again scoop it make, making sure I place it a sturdy test tube rack.

So at the end I had to analyze the concentration of the DNA I had and I believe I should have gotten somewhere of .6-.8 (some units I don't remember) but got around .4 even after all that. So my PI looks at me and wonders why it's on the lower side while sweat is coming down my forehead.

Nonetheless I bolt out the door after I give her my DNA tube.

I learned to always, I mean always use a test tube rack and above all stay organized because with all the different crap I needed to use, I was confused on where my final product was in the pile plastic bottles/solvents garbage etc.
 
Two weeks ago, I chipped the tip of gold tipped dissection scissors ($200+) because I accidentally hit hard bone while cutting with them. Fortunately, they can be repaired for like $25...

An old labbie accidentally added water to glacial sulfuric acid. It bubbled over and dissolved his $50 pants.
 
I was washing the glassware and sweeping the floor for one lab...and forgot to show up for a week. Everything piled up and nobody was happy :(
 
When I first started working in a lab (about 4-5 years ago), I was assigned the task of injecting all of our animals. Well, during that time I got used to the fact that after an injection, you toss the syringe in the sharps container and get a new one...

Then I started moving on to microinjections, and I continued to throw out the first couple of microsyringes I used...not realizing that those things are glass and cost about $500+ each...

My PI was NOT pleased and we had a long talk about how the autoclave is a better option than the sharps container...
 
We use a machine that filters and deionizes distilled water. We have these large containers to store the good water for use. I hooked the machine up to one of the containers, started filling it, and walked away. The last a-hole that used it left the spigot at the bottom of the container open and I didn't think to look. The lab turned into a kiddie pool.

Another time I was using nucleotides labeled with tritium and some splashed in my mouth. :scared: Luckily the energy it releases during beta decay is very small.
 
I was adjusting the pH of a clay and instead of adding water to clean up the sides, I added a heck a lot of acetone..The acetone bottle and the distilled water apparently looked the same to me. With that there goes 1 kG of clay into the trash..was the worst day ever, neverthless nothing went right after that....:(
 
Once (never again will I do this), I absent-mindedly autoclaved a 3/4 full 1L bottle of media with the cap tightly screwed on. Think about that for second.

Thank god nothing happened, though I don't even want to think about what could have happened.
 
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I was working on this one project once which required that I use a vibratome from one of our collaborators labs. A vibratome uses a metal blade that oscillates back and forth in fluid to very precisely cut tissue. This was definitely one of the more crucial machines in the lab, if you know what I mean. Basically, they use it to slice mouse brains and do live 'patch clamp' recording of action potentials in fine slices of mouse brain tissue. So, one day, I go over there, with my mouse brains ready to be sliced and all. I had them in PBS as per their request. But I had added 10% formalin solution, as per the request of another guy in the light microscopy lab. Anyways, I'm halfway through slicing my brains and someone from the lab asks me, 'so, what's in that solution ?'. I reply, 'just PBS with 10% formalin solution.' No big deal, right ? Wrong. This italian guy from the lab totally flips his ****. "Formalin! You can't have formalin solution you in there! We do live recordings! This will kill our specimen!" So, apparently, you can't do live recordings when you slice mouse brain tissue in solution with formalin. Make a note of it. I didin't think it was that big of a deal, but apparently I know nothing. They couldn't use the vibratome for a long time because they had to order new parts. Whatever, I got my results and I was happy. Ooops.
 
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Nothing disastrous so far... I'm just waiting for the day when I completely ruin my grad student's project.


Although I've contaminated my fair share of bacteria...
 
Maybe that sounded a little bitter. I actually felt really bad.
 
AtheGre said:
I was working on this one project once which required that I use a vibratome from one of our collaborators labs. A vibratome uses a metal blade that oscillates back and forth in fluid to very precisely cut tissue. This was definitely one of the more crucial machines in the lab, if you know what I mean. Basically, they use it to slice mouse brains and do live 'patch clamp' recording of action potentials in fine slices of mouse brain tissue. So, one day, I go over there, with my mouse brains ready to be sliced and all. I had them in PBS as per their request. But I had added 10% formalin solution, as per the request of another guy in the light microscopy lab. Anyways, I'm halfway through slicing my brains and someone from the lab asks me, 'so, what's in that solution ?'. I reply, 'just PBS with 10% formalin solution.' No big deal, right ? Wrong. This italian guy from the lab totally flips his ****. "Formalin! You can't have formalin solution you in there! We do live recordings! This will kill our specimen!" So, apparently, you can't do live recordings when you slice mouse brain tissue in solution with formalin. Make a note of it. I didin't think it was that big of a deal, but apparently I know nothing. They couldn't use the vibratome for a long time because they had to order new parts. Whatever, I got my results and I was happy. Ooops.
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Strange that you got results. Formaldehyde should have cross-linked your proteins...
 
This is one of my favorite threads. It should have an auto-bump built in so that it comes back every 3 months or so for new entries to be added, and new viewers to enjoy.
 
SayVYas said:
Strange that you got results. Formaldehyde should have cross-linked your proteins...
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I wasn't doing any antibody staining or anything with proteins and such. I was only looking at fluorescent cells that I had injected into the mouse brains. And since I was looking at the slices right after I had sliced them, the formaldehyde didn't really produce any autofluorescence. Sorry, I should have clarified. Thanks SayVYas.
 
not that it really matters, b/c you can still fix your tissue and do IHC afterwards...plus the formalin conc. wasn't even that high
 
just had a rough day in lab
reading this thread makes me feel better :]
 
halekulani said:
just had a rough day in lab
reading this thread makes me feel better :]
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Yeah, I hate those bad days in lab. Anyway, one time i pick up something next to the Bunsen burner that was hot and when I realized it was hot I threw it down. It broke in two pieces and everyone stared directly at me, including the teacher :laugh: Not to bad of a screw up, but my friends laughed for hours on end...
 
Let see, I have a few "fun" ones....

1) I broke one of those high speed huge centrifuge (the one that's as big as a dish washing machine) a month ago. I swear my PI was about to cry. :(

2) Also about a month ago =X, I dropped a FULL bottle of TEMED on the ground...the whole 4th floor smelled so bad for like 2 days and left a nice stain in front of the fridge.

3) I was doing vacuum filtration in ochem lab...and I had accidentally connected the air line to the flask instead of the water line, and the ceramic funnel basically rocketed upward and just shattered when it hit the top of the fume hood. Oh...and it also happened that I didn't put the tube on tight enough, so it came off and swung my flask across the bench. Ooops.

Good thing I decided not to do the Ph.D. program and that my PI is still keeping me. :smuggrin:
 
I am still mad at myself when I think about this. So anyone who does e.coli DNA purifications know that you can use maxipreps (for 200 ml cultures) or minipreps (for 3-5 ml cultures). Since the process of isolation is the same, except the maxipreps are just scaled up, I thought that the resuspension and neutralization buffers were also the same, so I just used them interchangeably. I was wondering for the longest time (like months) why my miniprep DNA yields were so low. Turns out I had been using the maxiprep buffer on my minipreps, which contain a the key BINDING SOLUTION that makes the DNA stick to the filter. So the whole time I was just pouring my DNA down the sink. SO STUPID. :laugh: Yeah I definitely didn't tell my PI about that one. hahahahahhaa
 
I electrolysed water into a test tube of O2 and a test tube of H2. We were supposed to demonstrate that burning steel wool would oxidize faster (glow) when placed in an oxygen rich environment by putting the steel wool into the tube with O2. Well, I ended up sticking the burning steel wool into the test tube of H2. There was a *pop* and the steel wool was blown into smithereens and the glowing bits were left floating in the air. My face was all blackened like a cartoon character's after experiencing an explosion.
 
Sophomore year of undergrad I worked for this supremely anal organic chemistry professor. Brilliant guy, but very serious.

Anywho, I went to take an NMR. The machine we have features a carousel that allows you to queue up to eight samples, so you get just pop them in the caurosel, and come back an hour later, and it'll all be done. Imagine a sort of circular device above the NMR that rotates when its time for a new sample.

Well, when I went to put my NMR tube into the spinner, your supposed to use sort of a gauge to make sure the NMR tube is in the appropriate position. Well, I forgot to use that, so my NMR tube was sticking out too far from the spinner. So when it came time for the carousel to spin my sample into the machine and drop it down, the NMR tube was sticking out and hit the NMR, so it broke. Pieces of glass fell into the machine.

I was so scared, I didn't know what to do. I got an older student, who looked at it, and got very nervous. So we got the lab tech dude. He looked at it, and got very nervous. So we got the boss, my professor who also was in charge of the NMR.

I think they ultimately had to open the machine up, and I believe check out the probe to make sure it wasn't damaged. The probe is the expensive part of the machine, I believe. Everything turned out ok, but damnit I was scared. I was the youngest kid in a lab that typically only deals with seniors. Even now, dealing with those damned NMR machines scare me. They are so mysterious.
 
My Freshman year, my Intro Bio Lab partner managed to spill butane and simultaneously knock over the bunsun burner..... so the butane rolls down the lab bench, followed by a stream of fire. As kimwipes are going up in flames, she says "um, I think i set the lab bench on fire."
 
Additionally, who HASN'T squirted someone in orgo lab with the sep funnel or condenser set up that hooks to the sink... thats the most entertaining part of that class :)
 
AtheGre said:
I was working on this one project once which required that I use a vibratome from one of our collaborators labs. A vibratome uses a metal blade that oscillates back and forth in fluid to very precisely cut tissue. This was definitely one of the more crucial machines in the lab, if you know what I mean. Basically, they use it to slice mouse brains and do live 'patch clamp' recording of action potentials in fine slices of mouse brain tissue. So, one day, I go over there, with my mouse brains ready to be sliced and all. I had them in PBS as per their request. But I had added 10% formalin solution, as per the request of another guy in the light microscopy lab. Anyways, I'm halfway through slicing my brains and someone from the lab asks me, 'so, what's in that solution ?'. I reply, 'just PBS with 10% formalin solution.' No big deal, right ? Wrong. This italian guy from the lab totally flips his ****. "Formalin! You can't have formalin solution you in there! We do live recordings! This will kill our specimen!" So, apparently, you can't do live recordings when you slice mouse brain tissue in solution with formalin. Make a note of it. I didin't think it was that big of a deal, but apparently I know nothing. They couldn't use the vibratome for a long time because they had to order new parts. Whatever, I got my results and I was happy. Ooops.
Click to expand...

hehe, my lab also uses a vibratome (and one person does patch-clamp with it) so your story is eerily descriptive of my lab. We are not even allowed to have formalin in the vibratome room and the room adjacent to the vibratome.
 
2 stories..

This summer as a research intern....I had 2 sets of aliquots (filled w/ samples of patient's blood...samples of which we had a limited amount from a study) out, one I had just done an assay with & was ready to throw away-the other I was about to do an assay with. I was totally not thinking & just grabbed the first one I saw & threw it out. I threw out the samples I was about to assay, but thank god the lids were on & I could retreive them. A post-doc helped me dig throught the biohazard bag.....my PI never knew about it.

And..ochem lab...my partner & I didn't bother adjustign the hot plate settings from what they were when we got it out. We were separating the caffeine from coffee and had to first heat the coffee...well, apparently our hot plate settings were on the highest level, we stepped away for a few minutes, heard glass break & went back to the bench to see that it had completely boiled up, knocking the watch glass off & shattering it. My professor was not pleased to have to help us scrape all the burnt crap off of the hot plate & the bubbling, burnt brown coffee off the floor.
 
I decided its time to contribute to this wonderful thread...

Not my screw up - but a bad one. We had a lot of REU students come through the department this summer. Someone forgot to tell their REU student how to use the autoclave. So this particular person autoclaved PHENOL. The entire building was filled with phenol fumes and we couldn't use the autoclave (the only one on that side of campus) for weeks.

I changed the roter on centifuge but did'nt screw it on. The centrifuge then refused to open or operate. Thank goodness one of the engineers figured it out so we didn't have to call the company...

Then there are the standard things - doing a 4 hour ELISA and then dumping out the plate before I've read it, dropping a multichannel pipette on the floor and cracking it in 2, extracting samples that shouldn't have been extracted... oh the list goes on.
 
Kaya12 said:
Additionally, who HASN'T squirted someone in orgo lab with the sep funnel or condenser set up that hooks to the sink... thats the most entertaining part of that class :)
Click to expand...

One of my students accidentally gave me a facial with something similar to that. I thought it was pretty funny myself.
 
efitzpat said:
Then there are the standard things - doing a 4 hour ELISA and then dumping out the plate before I've read it, dropping a multichannel pipette on the floor and cracking it in 2, extracting samples that shouldn't have been extracted... oh the list goes on.
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Oh so the ELISA plate & cracked pipette together reminded me of another story. Not a mistake, but...I was doing an assay & using the repeater to add the reagent. I realized I missed 2 of the wells & went back to do them. Did a few more further on, looked at the wells again..empty. I was like am I imagining things? I swear I just filled those. Filled them again, empty again. And I realized the wells appeared to turn colors. I checked my well guide paper under teh plate. It was wet & made the wells look like they were grayish...There was a crack in the plate.
 
I was instructed to remove the skull of a fetal pig with a scalpal....I cut through the skull, through the brain and directly into my thumb, pig brains and all. For whatever reason the scalpals we were using were a thousand years old, and it actually had some rust on it. So when I got home I made my mom grab me a vial of tetanus from work and I promptly jammed an 18 gauge needle into my shoulder.


In another instance...I was pipetting fish nucleotides into wells, and my professor, who was the hottest PhD I've ever seen, comes over and wants to "help" me. I had a death grip on the pipette, she goes to help guide it and it smashed through the gel, and then splashed us both with whatever solution the gel block was bathed in. Embarassing. I seriously considered proposing to her though.
 
ANF1986 said:
In another instance...I was pipetting fish nucleotides into wells, and my professor, who was the hottest PhD I've ever seen, comes over and wants to "help" me. I had a death grip on the pipette, she goes to help guide it and it smashed through the gel, and then splashed us both with whatever solution the gel block was bathed in. Embarassing. I seriously considered proposing to her though.
Click to expand...
:laugh:
 
The matlab program I was using to analyze rat EEG was chopping the first 15 minutes off all our recordings. I knew there was something wrong...just wasn't sure what it was.

My boss spent $5000 on fancy outsourced statistics before we figured it out.
 
I took a beaker off of a steam bath in o-chem lab, which had some kind of strong acid in it (I can't remember what it was...) and gently (or at least I thought gently) placed it on my lab counter. Well...the beaker broke, acid went all over my desk and lab manual... and pencil...

The whole desk actually turned from black to a chalky white...when i reached to pick the pencil up and I realized it had somehow melted to the table...

My lab UA said that I disrupted the integrity of the table.... and my TA wouldn't let me leave until I got the chalky substance off of the table (which had dried)... I think you could probably still go into the O-chem 1 lab and figure out which desk was mine...and i had that class fall of 2007.

The funny part is my friend had a cell biology lab that year. While in lab one day a girl came in and was talking about some idiot who spilled stuff all over his desk in her lab... at least I got an A.
 
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