I'm a 23 year old male who currently works as a post mortem forensic toxicologist. I was working on an extraction and was accidentally stuck with a glass pipet tip on my left index finger.
The heart blood samples I was working with were treated with HCl and methylene chloride prior to the incident, and spun down in a centrifuge to give me two distinct layers. I was using the glass pipet in conjunction with a vacuum in order aspirate the top aqueous layer when the tip broke. As I was trying to replace the tip, my hand slipped and the broken tip punctured my left index finger. Since this was a workers comp issue, I immediately went to the ER and was started on HIV prophylactic medications. I'm currently supposed to follow up with Infectious Disease every week until the regimen is finished.
I was doing a batch run of about 20 cases when this happened. I've confirmed in the case histories that one of the decedents was on an antiretroviral and that another had confirmed Hep C. The Hep C case was accessioned last month (July 18th) and the accident happened two days ago (August 10th). The autopsy specimens were basically sitting in the storage refrigerator for three weeks until I did my extraction. Nevertheless, I'm worried that this might be cause for concern. What do you all think?
Submitted August 13, 2016 at 01:25AM by TheChemistThrowAway http://ift.tt/2aNJBsa AskDocs
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