Safety is of paramount importance in chemistry laboratories. Chemists deal with a wide range of potentially dangerous substances, equipment, and processes including flammable solvents, toxic chemicals/waste, glassware, heating conditions, gas cylinders, and syringes. Although it is perhaps not one of the safety issues that receives much attention or makes headlines, needles are common in chemistry laboratories, and they have the potential to be incredibly dangerous. They are typically used to transfer solvents and/or reagents from one container to another—but when not used correctly they are also very effective at delivering the same substances into the human body! Whereas gloves and lab coats can protect against casual spills, there is little protection against a syringe needle. So, what would happen if you accidentally stabbed yourself with a syringe containing a residual amount of a common laboratory solvent after transferring the bulk of it to your reaction flask? What kind of damage would you expect, particularly if the solvent was highly toxic? Unfortunately, a real case occurred in my research group in June 2018 when a student injected himself with just a few drops of dichloromethane. The consequences were serious. To raise awareness of the consequences of what may seem like an innocuous accident, my student and I have decided to share this story more widely. Some of the pictures shown below are graphic and may be disturbing. We show these wounds, to fully inform the reader about the consequences of a misstep in performing a routine lab procedure. Additional images at different stages in the healing process are in Supporting Information. Few would believe the consequences without seeing the pictures, and we felt that a description would not suffice. Nicolas is a young student who joined my lab for a 2 month fellowship in June 2018. After 2 weeks in the lab performing reactions under the supervision of a PhD student, they both rushed into my office on a Monday morning at 9:15 am. The PhD student asked me, “Seb, Nicolas just poked himself with a needle and the finger looks weird, what do you think?” This was the first stage of the injury—the picture shown above was taken roughly 10–15 min after the incident. When I saw a pink/purple looking finger with the discoloration spread over a relatively large area I immediately knew something was wrong and that we needed to head straight to the hospital. I asked Nicolas what was in the syringe when he had pricked his finger with it, and his first reply was “nothing”. But that wasn’t quite the case; he had just finished injecting dichloromethane into his empty flask to set up a reaction. Although the syringe plunger had been fully depressed a small amount of residual solvent would have remained in the needle (a rough estimate suggests the amount would be about two drops or less than 100 μL) when it pierced his finger. Dichloromethane is one of the most common organic solvents used in a synthetic chemistry laboratory. More specifically for carbohydrate chemistry, dichloromethane is the typical solvent to perform glycosylation reactions. It is broadly used on a daily basis just as often as acetone, cyclohexane, ethyl acetate, ethanol, or methanol. Dichloromethane has the peculiarity to create heat when in direct contact with the skin, especially when confined between your skin and a watch or glove, as it also permeates quite readily through most protection gloves. If you have already experienced that immediate burnt feeling, you will remember how quickly you have removed your watch or glove. We left the chemistry building and headed to the hospital, which fortunately happens to be within walking distance of our campus and even has a specialized department for hand trauma. After we arrived there—and nearly 2 h after the accident—his finger looked purple, and there was a suspicion of necrosis at the periphery of the area (see picture below). While in the waiting room at the hospital, Nicolas began to feel extreme heat in his finger, and it got to the point where he could not even move it anymore. After a surgeon evaluated the wound at 10:30 am, the decision was made that an emergency operation was required immediately. Nicolas was taken to the operating room, and this is when, from my perspective, a very long and anxious wait began. The surgery started at 1:15 pm and lasted almost 2 h. The surgeon had to remove all of the dead flesh from around the puncture wound and the area underwent intense cleaning to reduce the possibility of subsequent infection and gangrene. To reconstruct his finger, a piece of skin was taken from Nicolas’s arm and grafted over the wound. The Supporting Information provides an image showing the condition of the finger 18 h after the operation. A few weeks after the operation, the surgeon shared that on first seeing the injury he thought he may have had to amputate the finger because of the extent of the damage. However, considering that Nicolas was only 22 years old (and loved to play the guitar), the surgeon decided that he would do everything he could to save his finger. He recounted how he had never seen such an injury during 25 years of working in an emergency hospital department that is located within walking distance of the chemistry, biochemistry, and physics departments; he had seen many injuries, but nothing like this one. Nicolas had to take painkillers, but these were not effective on a long-term basis, and after 10 days the pain started to kick back in. Eventually, the wound began to heal and, in the end, Nicolas’s finger recovered—almost back to normal. The nerve was affected by the necrosis but was not completely cut, and so through re-education and natural nerve reconstruction the normal function of the finger was restored, although with much less power or the special dexterity required for Guitar Hero. While waiting at the hospital during the surgery, I started looking for information about dichloromethane injuries and its Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) (see Table 1). To my surprise, I could not find anything about the injection of this solvent, just information related to eye contact, skin contact, ingestion, and inhalation. After tweeting about this accident to alert the chemistry community to the danger, in August 2018 I came across the publication of a similar case in Thailand (Dichloromethane injection: case report, DOI: 10.22038/apjmt.2018.11981). The pictures included in this article are also quite graphic and involve a man who voluntarily self-injected 2 mL of dichloromethane subcutaneously. The scientific evaluation of the injury and its consequences were carefully studied by the hospital in Bangkok. https://www.fishersci.com/store/msds?partNumber=AC167770025&productDescription=DICHLOROMETHANE%2C+99.8%25%2C+2.5LT&vendorId=VN00032119&countryCode=US&language=en. Unfortunately, any new entry to the dichloromethane MSDS document would require a detailed study with animals to be performed by a specific agency or laboratory. The study must reproduce the accident (or injection) and exposure to dichloromethane with an analysis of the damage to the tissues and a medical evaluation of the consequences. University Lyon 1 has spread the information to every chemistry-related laboratory to inform researchers about the accident in an effort to prevent further instances among students and staff. Of course, it would have been better if the accident had never happened, but it did, and so the most important outcome at this point is to consider what we can learn from this accident and what steps can we take to minimize the chances of something similar happening again.

(1)

The accidental injection of any solvent, especially a toxic one such as dichloromethane, should be taken very seriously, and action should be taken immediately. If the color of the puncture wound and the surrounding area turns pink or purple in a short period of time, this is most likely a sign of necrosis, and it is imperative that medical assessment and treatment is sought rapidly—emergency surgery may very well be required.

(2)

Try not to panic. Inform your colleagues as soon as possible and do not assume that you can take care of the injury yourself; the support of your co-workers could be vital at this point.

The accidental injection of any solvent, especially a toxic one such as dichloromethane, should be taken very seriously, and action should be taken immediately. If the color of the puncture wound and the surrounding area turns pink or purple in a short period of time, this is most likely a sign of necrosis, and it is imperative that medical assessment and treatment is sought rapidly—emergency surgery may very well be required. Try not to panic. Inform your colleagues as soon as possible and do not assume that you can take care of the injury yourself; the support of your co-workers could be vital at this point. Lastly, to minimize the likelihood of accidents with needles, can we develop new methods and systems for transferring solvents that do not involve cannulas and needles? Needles present a real hazard, amplified by their routine use in the lab. The consequences of a misstep can be catastrophic, resonating with the 2008 case at UCLA that resulted in the tragic death of a research assistant. In this case, the syringe used to transfer tert-butyl lithium between sealed containers became disassociated, causing the pyrophoric reagent to spill and ignite. The student passed away due to the severe burns she sustained from the fire. I would like to thank Nicolas for consenting to his story being shared in this article; he wanted the details of his accident to be communicated as widely as possible to alert others to the potential risk. He finished his internship in the lab and focused mainly on a literature survey for the project he was working on. Despite his examiners complaining about the lack of data in his project (maybe they forgot he could only spend 2 weeks at the bench rather than 8), he gave a great defense. Nicolas has not let his accident deter him, and he has continued doing organic chemistry; the following year he joined a chemistry laboratory in Sweden for a 6 month internship focusing on ionic liquids. He can also still play the guitar a little, but hasn’t yet quite got back to where he was prior to the accident. Given the lack of information on injection of dichloromethane, I would also like every student, lab manager, technician, engineer, principal investigator, professor, and safety officer, in academia or industry, to share this accident with their colleagues. Please help spread the word that dichloromethane injection is terribly serious and must be considered as an immediate threat. Additionally, this is an open challenge to the scientific community, engineers, and chemical suppliers to develop safer protocols and alternative equipment for routine procedures with high risk. The Supporting Information is available free of charge at https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acscentsci.0c00100.

• Additional images of the site of injury at various points after the incident (PDF)

Additional images of the site of injury at various points after the incident (PDF) Views expressed in this editorial are those of the author and not necessarily the views of the ACS. Electronic Supporting Information files are available without a subscription to ACS Web Editions. The American Chemical Society holds a copyright ownership interest in any copyrightable Supporting Information. Files available from the ACS website may be downloaded for personal use only. Users are not otherwise permitted to reproduce, republish, redistribute, or sell any Supporting Information from the ACS website, either in whole or in part, in either machine-readable form or any other form without permission from the American Chemical Society. For permission to reproduce, republish and redistribute this material, requesters must process their own requests via the RightsLink permission system. Information about how to use the RightsLink permission system can be found at http://pubs.acs.org/page/copyright/permissions.html. This article has not yet been cited by other publications. The Supporting Information is available free of charge at https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acscentsci.0c00100.

• Additional images of the site of injury at various points after the incident (PDF)

Additional images of the site of injury at various points after the incident (PDF) Electronic Supporting Information files are available without a subscription to ACS Web Editions. The American Chemical Society holds a copyright ownership interest in any copyrightable Supporting Information. Files available from the ACS website may be downloaded for personal use only. Users are not otherwise permitted to reproduce, republish, redistribute, or sell any Supporting Information from the ACS website, either in whole or in part, in either machine-readable form or any other form without permission from the American Chemical Society. For permission to reproduce, republish and redistribute this material, requesters must process their own requests via the RightsLink permission system. Information about how to use the RightsLink permission system can be found at http://pubs.acs.org/page/copyright/permissions.html.

中文翻译：

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安全第一：最近发生的注射二氯甲烷伤害案例。

在化学实验室中，安全性至关重要。化学家处理各种潜在危险的物质，设备和过程，包括易燃溶剂，有毒化学物质/废料，玻璃器皿，加热条件，气瓶和注射器。尽管可能不是引起人们广泛关注或成为头条新闻的安全问题之一，但针头在化学实验室中很常见，并且有潜在的令人难以置信的危险。它们通常用于将溶剂和/或试剂从一个容器转移到另一个容器，但是如果使用不正确，它们也可以非常有效地将相同的物质输送到人体中！手套和实验室大衣可以防止偶然的溢出，而注射器针头几乎没有保护。所以，如果将大部分转移到反应烧瓶中后，不小心用装有残留普通实验室溶剂的注射器刺了一下会怎样？您会期望哪种损坏，特别是如果溶剂剧毒的话？不幸的是，我的研究小组在2018年6月发生了一个真实案例，当时一名学生只给自己注入了几滴二氯甲烷。结果是严重的。为了提高对看似无害事故的后果的认识，我和我的学生决定更广泛地分享这个故事。我的研究小组在2018年6月发生了一个真实案例，当时一名学生仅向自己注入了几滴二氯甲烷。结果是严重的。为了提高对看似无害事故的后果的认识，我和我的学生决定更广泛地分享这个故事。我的研究小组在2018年6月发生了一个真实案例，当时一名学生仅向自己注入了几滴二氯甲烷。结果是严重的。为了提高对看似无害事故的后果的认识，我和我的学生决定更广泛地分享这个故事。下面显示的某些图片是图形的，可能会令人不安。我们展示了这些伤口，以使读者充分了解执行常规实验室程序中错误操作的后果。修复过程中不同阶段的其他图像在支持信息中。很少有人会在不看图片的情况下相信后果，而我们认为描述是不够的。Nicolas是一名年轻学生，于2018年6月加入我的实验室，为期2个月的研究金。在实验室工作2周后，在一名博士生的监督下做出了反应，他们俩都于周一上午9:15冲进了我的办公室。那个博士生问我：“塞伯，尼古拉斯刚用针戳了戳自己，手指看起来很奇怪，你怎么看？” 这是受伤的第一步-上图显示的是事故发生后大约10-15分钟。当我看到粉红色/紫色的手指变色散布在相对较大的区域时，我立即知道出了点问题，我们需要直接去医院。我问尼古拉斯（Nicolas）用手指刺破注射器时里面有什么，他的第一个回答是“没事”。但是事实并非如此。他刚完成向其空烧瓶中注入二氯甲烷以建立反应。尽管已经完全压下了注射器柱塞，但在刺入手指时，针中仍会残留少量残留溶剂（粗略估计表明该量约为两滴或少于100μL）。二氯甲烷是合成化学实验室中最常用的有机溶剂之一。更具体地说，对于碳水化合物化学而言，二氯甲烷是进行糖基化反应的典型溶剂。每天广泛使用它，就像丙酮，环己烷，乙酸乙酯，乙醇或甲醇一样。二氯甲烷与皮肤直接接触时会产生热量，特别是在皮肤与手表或手套之间时，会散发出热量，因为它也很容易透过大多数防护手套渗透。如果您已经感觉到立即有烧焦的感觉，您会记得您移走手表或手套的速度有多快。我们离开了化学大楼，前往医院，幸运的是，医院恰好在我们校园的步行范围内，甚至设有专门的手外伤科。在我们到达那里之后-事故发生后将近2小时-他的手指看上去发紫，并且怀疑该区域周围有坏死（见下图）。在医院的候诊室里，尼古拉斯开始感到手指发烫，在外科医生于上午10:30对伤口进行评估后，决定立即进行紧急手术。尼古拉斯（Nicolas）被带到手术室，从我的角度来看，这是一个漫长而焦虑的等待的开始。手术从下午1:15开始，持续了将近2小时。外科医生必须清除穿刺伤口周围的所有死皮，并对该区域进行彻底清洁，以减少随后感染和坏疽的可能性。为了重建他的手指，从尼古拉斯的手臂上取下一块皮肤，并将其移植到伤口上。支持信息提供了图像，显示了手术后18h手指的状况。手术几周后，外科医生分享说，第一次见到受伤时，他认为由于损伤程度，他可能不得不截肢。但是，考虑到尼古拉斯只有22岁（并且喜欢弹吉他），外科医生决定他会竭尽所能挽救手指。他讲述了在化学，生物化学和物理部门步行距离之内的急诊医院部门工作25年以来从未见过如此受伤的情况。他见过很多伤，但没有这样的伤。Nicolas必须服用止痛药，但这些药长期无效，并且十天后疼痛开始恢复。最终，伤口开始愈合，最终Nicolas的手指恢复了，几乎恢复了。正常。神经受到坏死的影响，但并未完全切断，因此，通过重新教育和自然神经重建，手指的正常功能得以恢复，在手术期间在医院里等待时，我开始寻找有关二氯甲烷伤害及其材料安全数据表（MSDS）的信息（请参见表1）。令我惊讶的是，我找不到与注射这种溶剂有关的任何东西，而只是与眼睛接触，皮肤接触，食入和吸入有关的信息。在发布有关该事故的警报以提醒化学界注意这一危险之后，2018年8月，我在泰国遇到了一起类似案例的发布（二氯甲烷注射液：病例报告，DOI：10.22038 / apjmt.2018.11981）。本文中包含的图片也非常生动，涉及到一名男子，他自愿皮下自行注射了2 mL二氯甲烷。曼谷的医院对伤痕及其后果进行了科学评估。https：//www.fishersci。com / store / msds？partNumber = AC167770025＆productDescription = DICHLOROMETHANE％2C + 99.8％25％2C + 2.5LT＆vendorId = VN00032119＆countryCode = US＆language = zh-CN。不幸的是，任何新的二氯甲烷MSDS文件条目都需要由专门机构或实验室对动物进行详细研究。该研究必须重现事故（或注射）并暴露于二氯甲烷，并对组织损伤进行分析并对其后果进行医学评估。里昂第一大学已将信息传播到每个与化学有关的实验室，以通知研究人员有关该事故的信息，以防止学生和教职员工中的进一步事件发生。当然，如果事故从未发生会更好，但是确实如此，

（1）	应当非常小心地意外注入任何溶剂，特别是有毒溶剂，例如二氯甲烷。应立即采取行动。如果穿刺伤口和周围区域的颜色在短时间内变成粉红色或紫色，则很可能是坏死的迹象，因此必须迅速寻求医学评估和治疗-紧急手术很可能是最好的选择。需要。
（2）	尽量不要惊慌。尽快通知您的同事，不要以为自己可以自己照顾受伤；此时，您的同事的支持可能至关重要。

应当非常小心地意外注入任何溶剂，尤其是有毒溶剂，例如二氯甲烷。应立即采取行动。如果穿刺伤口和周围区域的颜色在短时间内变成粉红色或紫色，则很可能是坏死的迹象，因此必须迅速寻求医学评估和治疗-紧急手术很可能是需要。尽量不要惊慌。尽快通知您的同事，不要以为自己可以自己照顾受伤；此时，您的同事的支持可能至关重要。最后，为了最大程度地减少针头事故的可能性，我们是否可以开发新的方法和系统来转移不涉及针头和针头的溶剂？针头具有实际危害，在实验室中的常规使用会加剧这种危害。失误的后果可能是灾难性的，与UCLA于2008年发生的案例产生共鸣，该案例导致一名研究助理的悲惨死亡。在这种情况下，注射器用于转移叔叔密封容器之间的丁基丁基锂解离，导致自燃试剂溢出并着火。这名学生因她在大火中烧伤而去世。我要感谢Nicolas同意在本文中分享他的故事；他希望将事故细节尽可能广泛地传达给其他人，以提醒他们潜在的危险。他完成了在实验室的实习，主要从事他所从事项目的文献调查。尽管他的审查员抱怨他的项目中缺少数据（也许他们忘记了他只能在板凳上呆2个星期而不是8个星期），但他还是做出了出色的辩护。尼古拉斯（Nicolas）并没有让他的意外阻止他，他继续进行有机化学研究。次年，他加入了瑞典的化学实验室，为期6个月的实习期，主要从事离子液体的研究。他还可以弹吉他一点，但是还没有回到事故发生前的状态。鉴于缺乏有关注入二氯甲烷的信息，我也希望学术界或工业界的每位学生，实验室经理，技术人员，工程师，首席研究员，教授和安全主任与同事分享这次事故。请帮助散布这样的信息：注入二氯甲烷非常严重，必须将其视为直接威胁。此外，这对于科学界，工程师和化学供应商来说，为高风险的常规程序开发更安全的规程和替代设备是一项公开挑战。

• 事发后各个地点受伤地点的其他图像（PDF）

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• 事发后各个地点受伤地点的其他图像（PDF）

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