Lab fire injures graduate student

Palladino said a graduate student was doing reserch in a two-person lab yesterday which included working with ether. He said the student dropped a flask containing the ether and a heat source in the room ignited it. The researcher was identified by his lab partner, second-year graduate student Maria Cichy, as third-year graduate student John Leazer. Palladino said that after the fire, Leazer "went to the safety shower, pulled the fire alarm, [left the room], and closed the door, exactly what he should have done." Cichy, who was in the library when the fire began, said that after the initial ignition, the fire spread to wooden cabinets along the laboratory wall that usually contain chemicals. She added that there were not too many excess chemicals in the cabinets since "anytime [Leazer] has a dangerous chemical that he is done using, he takes it to waste disposal and he never has excess chemical waste in the lab." Cichy added later that Leazer, who was taken to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania after the incident, was not immediately released and was being treated for "second degree burns under his arms." -- Otto Dandenell and Beth Tritter