Oh! What A Carelessness! High School Chemistry Teacher Reportedly Sets A Student On Fire In The Laboratory

Daily News in its latest news report, said that a high school chemistry teacher reportedly ‘burnt’ a student’s ear due to carelessness in handling a jug of combustible chemicals which led to a fireball.

The investigative arm of Beacon High School’s education department which carried out a probe into the chemistry demonstration on Jan. 2, revealed that the teacher Anna Poole poured methanol from a one-gallon bottle into four separate Petri dishes containing nitrates that had been aflame only moments prior; and this act caused the flammable liquid to instantly erupt, flying across the classroom at the elite Upper West Side school

Find Daily News reports on the incident after the cut…

“A fireball — like a blow torch — erupted and shot across the room. Poole did not hear anything, but saw a white flame shoot across the room, and then Student A was on fire,” the Special Commissioner of Investigation report said.

That student, Alonzo Yanes, 16, suffered second- and third-degree burns to his face, neck and torso, according to the report.

School custodian Dimitri Stefanopoulos rushed to the classroom to find the student with a “melted” left ear and a hole in his shirt, according to the report.

He “looked like a victim from a battlefield,” Stefanopoulos told investigators.

A second 16-year-old student, Julia Saltonstall, received less serious burns on her forearms.

Only Poole wore protective goggles during the explosive experiment, according to the report.

Beacon biology and chemistry teacher Thomas Covotsos — who called 911 and attempted to put out the flames torching Yanes — told Stefanopoulos his colleague made critical mistakes in the experiment, according to the report.

A much smaller amount of methanol should have been poured from a beaker, he reportedly said. Much smaller quantities of liquids on the tips of wooden sticks or soaked in a sponge would have produced