An undergraduate physics student wearing the correct protective gear and demonstrating a safe way to dispense liquid nitrogen.

Indium in the eye and arsenic in the autoclave are just two of the more exotic safety incidents that weren’t expected to occur in our School over the past year.

Investigating incidents such as these is part of the job of Jon Everett, our safety officer, who is also responsible for the overall safe use of hazardous substances, record keeping and hazard reports. Jon works with other safety officers in the Faculty of Science, and reports to the Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) committee, which meets about five times per year.

About twice a year, Jon can be found with Joji Conducto and Bob Starrett, the building SECOs, who have put on their orange helmets and, with the gentle persuasion of the emergency warning system and a bevy of helmeted wardens, orchestrated a smooth and orderly building evacuation.

Jon Everett is also one of the school’s qualified first-aid officers. There is one in each of the teaching laboratories, and in many other areas throughout the school.

Of course Jon is not the only person in the school with specific safety related responsibilities. In 2004 the OHS committee had eight other members: Jack Cochrane, chair and general staff representative; John Tann, laser safety officer and general staff representative; Krystyna Wilk, radiation safety officer and academic staff representative; Pritipal Baweja, workshop representative; Justin Dinale, Ra Inta and Paul ten Boom, student representatives; Martin Brauhart, CQCT representative; John Storey, Head of School; and Galina Kaseko, systems development.

Splitting the building up in to smaller areas – laboratories, corridors, office spaces, teaching rooms, etc – and allocating these spaces to an area supervisor, has meant that maintenance, safety inspections, inductions of new staff, training, chemical inventories, and reporting is now managed at a local level. Quarterly inspections have been introduced as a health and safety check for these areas, and the School OHS committee follows up these reports with an annual inspection.