Metro

Teacher of chemistry lab gone wrong neglected safety protocols: expert

Alonzo Yanes
Alonzo YanesSteven Hirsch

A chemistry safety expert testified Thursday in the trial for a Beacon High School student who was burned in an experiment gone wrong in 2014 to say that his chemistry teacher and the school neglected a slew of safety protocols.

“It never should have been done,” Samuella Sigmann said of the “Rainbow Experiment” that chemistry teacher Anna Poole was conducting when student Alonzo Yanes was engulfed in a fireball.

“That’s willful negligence,” Sigmann, a professor at Appalachian State University, said of the fact that the classroom didn’t have a fume hood and there wasn’t a working fume hood in the entire school.

“Because they did not have the proper equipment to do it. There was a clear and present hazard and they ignored it. The risk was very high,” Sigmann added.

There was no fire blanket, shower or eyewash in the classroom, and Poole said in a deposition that she had never used a fire extinguisher before — all departures from good safety practices, Sigmann said.

Students previously testified that it was another student who ran for the fire extinguisher to put out Yanes who was rolling and flailing on fire on the floor for some 45 seconds while Poole stood frozen in shock.

“In an emergency time is of the essence,” Sigmann said. “It has to be second nature that you go for you safety equipment.”

Sigmann also said Poole should “never, never ever” have brought a gallon jug of highly flammable methanol into the classroom, let alone have poured it directly onto the salts she was using to show the various flame colors each salt would produce.

“Methanol in a gallon jug can predictably flame-jet over a hot evaporating flame dish,” Sigmann said.

While Poole was wearing goggles, students were not. And the teens — who should have been at least 8 feet away from the demonstration table, Sigmann said — were also sitting too close, with Yanes just 2 to 3 feet away.

A lawyer representing the city, Mark Mixson asked Sigmann, “You’re not pretending to have expertise in the field of accident investigation?” to which Sigmann acknowledged she wasn’t.

Despite the fact that Sigmann had written a paper on the “Rainbow Experiment” last year she said that she had never personally conducted it herself.

“I’ve never done it. I’ve only seen it in videos and pictures,” she said.

Yanes and his parents are suing the DOE and Poole for $27 million.

Yanes, now 21, was in the courtroom Thursday and is expected to resume the witness stand Friday.