Freezer Meltdown

[logisticslad]

So I came to work today to run rats for my student's experiment and heard an alarm from across the hall. It turned out to be the -80 degree Freezer melting down. It progressed from -62 to -58 within the 10 min it took me to find someone amidst the list of emergency contacts who was home. Meanwhile security and maintenance came by to see what was going on. They helpfully determined that there was no power surge and identified the lack of condensor noise as indicating that it was indeed broken. So I finally got ahold of someone who could provide me with the combination to an alternate freezer and I transferred everything there. Now I am notifying everyone involved, in case they come in to find freezer surprises. So it was good that I came in today - our alarm system worked, our emergency contacts worked (eventually), our security and maintenance worked. The only thing that stopped working was the Freezer. RIP.

Comments

[schnuder.livejournal.com]

Lucky that you caught it in time. I had a refridgerator die on me durring my senior project as an undergrad. Unfornately, the lab, being run by a relatively young junior member of the faculty didn't have the money for an alarmed fridge, so when it broke over a weekend noone noticed untill monday when someone came in and my rat brain sections had gone from gently cooled to frozen, the ice crystals having destoyed portions of the tissue, setting me back at least a month.

[logisticslad.livejournal.com]

I've lived through several freezer meltdowns throughout my career and it sucks each and every time. That's why it is so important to have alarms and an emergency plan, so that anyone who encounters the problem knows how to handle it. I'm sorry to hear that it happened to you, and I'm glad that you survived it.

[moonpuppy61.livejournal.com]

Scary, let's hope nothing suffered from the temperature changes. Once again your logisticslad powers conquer a dangerous situation.

[logisticslad.livejournal.com]

Yay for superpowers! I get bonus points for this one, since my stuff wasn't even in this freezer.