It's on the forum somewhere,I remember reading about it. Junior member of lab staff managed to open an autoclave mid-cycle and it went off like a bomb, ejecting molten agar and shards of red-hot glass into the air. We had an air ambulance on site within minutes, closely followed by a paramedic car and an ambulance. They whizzed her off to hospital, but by a miracle she only had two superficial facial blisters which healed without trace. Anyway, as it was an accident involving a pressure vessel we reported it to the HSE, who lost interest as soon as the employee admitted that she had completely disregarded all her training and all our Standard Operating Procedures. Finding herself staring at a summary dismissal for gross breach of Health and Safety she disclosed that she was on medication that was affecting her ability to concentrate (she had written off two cars in own-fault accidents in the previous few weeks). We sent her to our Occupation Health consultants for a full review to see if her medication could be changed or if she was medically unfit to work in a lab, during which we put her on office-based duties. They changed her medication, we gradually moved her back into the lab, and she's been fine ever since. That's really decent of you Mark. Under the circumstances gross misconduct and out the door would have been the easy option.