Staff turns off freezer, ruins decades of US college’s research
After the freezer was switched off to quiet an "annoying alarm", Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York sued the cleaner's employer.
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Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York, USA (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)
When a cleaner at a college in New York State turned off a freezer to muffle "annoying alarm" sounds, she unintentionally erased decades of study.
The cleaner's employer is being sued by Troy's Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), which claims that inadequate training occurred. The institution is requesting more than $1 million in damages, according to a complaint that was filed in the New York supreme court in Rensselaer County earlier this month, the Times Union newspaper reported.
“People’s behavior and negligence caused all this,” Michael Ginsberg, an attorney for RPI, said as quoted by the Times Union. “Unfortunately, they wiped out 25 years of research.”
The cleaner, who is not identified in the case, worked at RPI for a number of months in 2020 while hired by Daigle Cleaning Systems.
In further detail, many cultures from a study on photosynthesis led by biology and chemistry professor KV Lakshmi were kept in the lab freezer, as per BBC. Typically, the cultures were kept at -112F (-80C).
The complaint claims that an alert on September 14, 2020, days before the freezer was disconnected, showed that the temperature was changing. It also adds that the specimens in the freezer were still alive at that time.
At the time, COVID regulations prevented repairs for one week. The lab posted a notice indicating where the noise was originating from and how to turn it off in order to explain the alert and take action to protect the cultures.
To prevent anyone from disconnecting the freezer, Lakshmi also put a lock box on the outlet and socket.
“[A] majority of specimens were compromised, destroyed and rendered unsalvageable demolishing more than 20 years of research,” the lawsuit says.
The cleaner said that after hearing the sirens, he mistakenly believed he was turning on the circuit breaker in an interview with university representatives.
"At the end of the interview, he still did not appear to believe he had done anything wrong but was just trying to help," the complaint claims, adding that the cleaner made an "error" while interpreting the panel.
