A school in Lincolnshire has been fined £19,000 for ignoring safety procedures, leaving a 16 year old girl with terrible burns to her hands and the loss of all but two of her fingers.
According to The Times, the girl was attempting to make a sculpture of her own hands during an art lesson using a plaster of Paris mould, and having submerged her hands in to the wet clay, the mould began to heat up and set due to a chemical reaction, the Boston Magistrates Court was told.
Her colleagues, teachers and paramedics were unable to break her from the mould which, according to the prosecutor for the Health and Safety Executive (or HSE) Jo Anderson, meant that “The student’s hands were literally being burnt as the plaster was setting around them.”
In the end Nottingham City hospital required the use of power tools to free the girl’s hands but the damage was already done.
Guidance for using plaster of Paris states that it should be handled using goggles and safety gloves to avoid exothermic reactions. It is evident that, although shown the correct way to make a mould, the student was clearly not appropriately informed of the possible consequences of her using the mould incorrectly and as such the school fell way below the safety standards expected of them.
To add insult to injury, the school failed to report the incident to the HSE and they were only made aware by the student’s surgeon six weeks after the incident occurred.
The whole incident could have been avoided by an appropriate risk assessment being conducted on the use of such a potentially dangerous material and proper guidance being issued to teachers and students and also appropriate supervision. Also, in failing to report the incident, the school cast itself in an even worse light, as it makes it appear as though they attempted to cover the accident up.
The girl, who cannot be named, has had to undergo 12 operations since her accident and has required numerous modifications and adaptations to her life as a result of her injuries.
