The cleaning staff accidentally dropped the breaker and the university's ultra-low temperature freezer stopped and 25 years of research results were lost
At Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, a cleaning staff mistakenly responded to an alarm and tripped a circuit breaker, shutting down an ultra-low temperature freezer and wiping out 25 years of research. . The university is suing a company that hired a cleaner, claiming that it suffered damage of at least $1 million (about 144 million yen).
RPI sues after cleaner's gaffe allegedly destroyed research
Cleaner accidentally ruins decades of US college's research by turning off freezer | New York |
This accident occurred in the evening of September 17, 2020. A janitor from Daigle Cleaning Services, responsible for cleaning the Chemical Biology Research Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, manipulated the switchboard as the alarm continued to ring. This action tripped the circuit breaker, shutting down the research center's ultra-low temperature freezer.
The next day, the staff noticed that the temperature inside the freezer, which was originally -80°C, had risen to -32°C. It was said to be irreparable.
This freezer is operated to store research materials by Professor K. V. Lakshmi of the Research Center, and the temperature inside is normally kept at minus 80 degrees. If the temperature rises or falls, there is a risk of damage to the materials, so a beeping alarm was set to sound when the temperature rose to -78 degrees Celsius and when the temperature dropped to -82 degrees Celsius.
On September 14, three days before the accident in question, an alarm sounded as the temperature inside the freezer rose to minus 78 degrees, and Professor Lakshmi checked the inside and confirmed that there were no problems with the materials. I decided that the temperature rise was a sensor misdetection and asked the manufacturer to repair it, but because it was in the middle of a pandemic, the work was scheduled to be done after September 21, 2020. Meanwhile, the alarm continued to ring.
For this reason, the freezer door says 'Beeping under repair. Do not move or unplug. No cleaning is required for this area. If you want to mute the sound, press 'Alarm/Test'. Please press the button for 5 to 10 seconds' was attached.
``Their actions and negligence caused this event. They erased 25 years of research,'' said Michael Ginsberg, a university attorney.
When the university's public security staff interviewed the cleaner, he believed that he 'triggered the breaker' and said, 'I didn't think I did anything wrong, I was just trying to help. It was just that.'
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