Gruesome accident prompts call to find alternative to needles in chemistry labs

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1. In June 2018, Nicolas, a 22 year-old student, was working in Sebastien Vidal’s lab at the University of Lyon 1. He emptied a syringe containing dichloromethane (DCM) into a flask, but then accidentally pricked his finger with it. Vidal estimates about two drops, or less than 100pl of DCM, was left in the needle and that this entered the finger.

·   2. Following the needlestick injury, it took around 15 minutes for a purple discoloration to spread over Nicolas' finger. After two hours, the edges of the purple patch were turning black, indicating necrosis — cell death — was beginning. At this point, Nicholas complained that the finger felt very hot and hard to move.

·    3. The surgeon, who initially had thought he would have to amputate, managed to remove the dead flesh from around the puncture wound, and used a skin graft from Nicolas’ arm to reconstruct the finger.

4. In June 2018, Nicolas, a 22 year-old student, was working in Sebastien Vidal’s lab at the University of Lyon 1. He emptied a syringe containing dichloromethane (DCM) into a flask, but then accidentally pricked his finger with it. Vidal estimates about two drops, or less than 100pl of DCM, was left in the needle and that this entered the finger.

·     5. Following the needlestick injury, it took around 15 minutes for a purple discoloration to spread over Nicolas' finger. After two hours, the edges of the purple patch were turning black, indicating necrosis — cell death — was beginning. At this point, Nicholas complained that the finger felt very hot and hard to move.

·    6. The surgeon, who initially had thought he would have to amputate, managed to remove the dead flesh from around the puncture wound, and used a skin graft from Nicolas’ arm to reconstruct the finger.

·  7. DCM is one of the most common organic solvents used in synthetic chemistry labs. Information on DCM injuries and its material safety data sheet (MSDS) provide details about eye contact, skin contact, ingestion and inhalation, but not injection, Vidal points out.

8. Vidal believes that these cases show that the MSDS documents should be amended to contain information relating to injections. ’But I was told by our university safety officer that modifying a MSDS document takes ages and lots of data need to be collected' These include detailed animal studies that reproduce the accident, an analysis of tissue damage and a medical evaluation.

·  9. Vidal would also like the scientific community and chemical suppliers to develop safer protocols and alternative equipment for routine procedures such as chemical transfer. One idea is to use ‘flat- ended’ needles to avoid puncture wounds. ’These are available now but we typically use sharp- ended needles in organic chemistry because we need to inject a solvent through a rubber stopper preserving our reaction vessel from outside air/moisture.  

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