Jakarta –
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, filed a lawsuit against a janitorial service for allegedly shutting down a lab freezer containing research material.
The cleaner, who is not being charged in the lawsuit, is a contractor for Daigle Cleaning Systems Inc., which worked for several months in 2020 at a private research university in Troy.
The university is seeking over USD 1 million in damages and legal costs from Daigle Cleaning Systems as a result of the incident.
The laboratory fridge contains more than 20 years of research, including cell cultures and samples, where “a small temperature fluctuation of three degrees will cause great harm,” according to a lawsuit filed with the Rensselaer County Supreme Court.
The college believes the janitor was innocent, but blames Daigle Cleaning Systems for failing to properly train and supervise him.
“The accused, by and through his negligent, reckless and/or reckless supervision and control [petugas kebersihan]causing damage to certain cell cultures, samples, and/or research in the Lab,” the university claims quoted by CNN, Wednesday (28/6/2023).
The lawsuit stated that cell cultures and specimens in the freezer needed to be maintained at -80 degrees Celsius and that even a small fluctuation of 3 degrees would cause damage, so an alarm would sound if the temperature rose to -78 degrees or dropped to -82 degrees.
KV Lakshmi, a professor and director of the Baruch Biochemistry Solar Energy Research Center ’60, the school that supervised the research, heard the freezer alert go off on or about September 14, 2020, as the temperature had climbed to -78 degrees.
Despite their caution, Lakshmi and her team decided that the cell samples would be safe until emergency repairs could be carried out. When Lakhsmi came to do the repairs, her team added safety lock boxes around the freezer outlets and sockets. A warning has been posted on the freezer.
“THIS FREEZER BEEPS LIKE UNRESERVED. PLEASE DO NOT MOVE OR UNLOCK IT. NO CLEANING REQUIRED IN THIS AREA. YOU MAY PRESS THE ALARM/TEST MUTE BUTTON FOR 5-10 SECONDS IF YOU WANT TO MAKE A SOUND,” the warning read, according to the lawsuit.
However, on September 17, the janitor heard what he later called a “disturbing alarm,” according to the lawsuit. In an apparent attempt to help, he flipped the circuit breaker, which provides electricity to the freezer, mistakenly turning it from “on” to “off”, according to the lawsuit.
The next day, research students discovered that the freezer was turned off and despite efforts to preserve the research, most of the culture was “compromised, destroyed, and rendered unsalvageable by destroying over twenty years of research,”.
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(his/her)
2023-06-28 04:33:38
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