Disaster.. A cleaner destroyed 20 years of scientific research in an American laboratory

In a catastrophic situation, the Institute of Applied Sciences in the United States announced that a worker assigned to clean laboratories had destroyed the results of 20 years of scientific research in the laboratory.

And the cleaning worker hired by a private cleaning company under the agreement between it and the Rensselaer Institute of Applied Sciences in New York State heard “annoying alarm signals” from a laboratory refrigerator that contained samples for scientific research and decided to turn it off, according to the “New York Post”.

A sign on the fridge door explained how to mute the beeps, but the circuit breaker was said to have been turned off after a reading error.

For their part, lawyers said that the samples stored at a temperature of -80 degrees Celsius were left “unsalvageable”, causing damages of one million dollars.

According to the lawsuit, the majority of the samples that were supposed to have been kept at -80 degrees Celsius were “destroyed and made unsalvageable, destroying more than 20 years of research”.

Turn off the electricity

A report submitted by public safety staff at the Institute stated that the cleaner thought he was turning on the circuit breaker, when he actually turned it off.

The temperature in the refrigerator had allegedly risen by 50 degrees, to around minus 30 degrees Celsius, by the time the researchers discovered the bug.

In addition, the American newspaper “Times Union” reported that the cleaning company entered into a contract worth $ 1.4 million, in exchange for cleaning the “Rensselaer Institute of Applied Sciences” in Troy, New York, in 2020, which is the time of the accident.

The institute’s legal team says that the company that hired the cleaner failed to train him properly, while the company has not yet commented on the incident. The institute’s management has filed a lawsuit against the cleaning company, as the damages to the institute are estimated at more than one million dollars.