UCI Students Suffer Minor Contamination

Two UC Irvine graduate biology students suffered low levels of radioactive contamination Friday night after one of them spilled phosphorus while conducting research in a campus laboratory, a UCI official said.

The two, who were not identified, were in the biology lab about 6:30 p.m. when one spilled a small amount of phosphorus 32, considered a low-level radioactive contaminant, on his leg and foot and tracked it into a hallway where the other student got some of the material on his shoe, said Scott Nelson, a university spokesman.

Campus police, county firefighters and the university’s environmental health and safety officials arrived at the scene, cleaned the material off the students’ clothing and sent it to another campus lab for evaluation, Nelson said.

“At most, there was only minimal contact of the chemical on their skin,” Nelson said. “Their skin showed no reading of the chemical.”

The students were checked by campus health officials and allowed to return home, Nelson said. As a precaution, they were given portable sensors to check for radioactivity.