The scars remain, four months after Amber Schumacher and her early-morning chemistry class filed into the New Berlin West High School theater for a science demonstration.
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Sitting in the fourth row of the auditorium, Schumacher watched as her teacher combined chlorides with methyl alcohol in a series of pie tins before lighting each. A flash erupted from one of the pans, sending a fireball hurtling into the audience.
Schumacher's shirt and arms caught fire. She rolled on the ground to put them out, then crawled out of the auditorium for help. She and three other students from the school were eventually taken to Children's Hospital of Wisconsin in Wauwatosa for treatment of second-degree burns.
"I'm not mad," said Schumacher, 17 and entering school this fall as a senior. She still bears scars on her forearms from the March 11 incident, scars that she has been told eventually will fade.
"It just shouldn't have happened, though."
But evidence nationwide suggests that such accidents are happening, and with growing frequency as schools move toward more hands-on experimenting in science classrooms that may not be equipped to handle the increased activity.
Across the country, at least 150 students have been seriously injured in school laboratory accidents in the past four years, The Associated Press reports. Researchers, school officials and insurance companies indicate the actual number could be higher.
Only a year before the New Berlin accident, Waukesha North High School science teacher Eric Franzen burned his face, arms and hands as he prepared for a demonstration before his daughter's class from Lowell Elementary School, said Ryan Champeau, the high school's principal.
"There was no negligence in any way that we could determine. It was just an accident," Champeau said. "Sometimes bad things happen."
The likelihood of such accidents increases, however, when science teachers are not well-versed in safety and are conducting experiments in laboratories not up to the latest standards, safety experts say.
The answer is to make sure teachers are adequately trained, not to cut down on the number of experiments, said James Rickabaugh, superintendent of the Whitefish Bay School District.
"Obviously, when students begin to interact directly with chemicals and are engaged in experiments, it is, in a pure sense, more dangerous than if they were just reading a textbook," he said. "The quality of learning is higher," too.
Improving safety has been aggressively pursued in Wisconsin ever since research found lapses in teacher training and other possible hazards in school science laboratories, said Shelley Lee, an education consultant for the state Department of Public Instruction. Lee co-authored a report on the issue that was published last year.
According to that report, which was based on research conducted in 1999:
Since those findings, the DPI has conducted about 25 training sessions with representatives from about 400 of the state's 426 school districts, Lee said.
In addition, as school districts have looked to build new schools or renovate old ones, more and more are using current safety standards in designing lab space, she said.
"I would say that the state is in a much better position than we were even when we did the research three years ago because of the safety training," Lee said. "There's a lot of really positive, proactive things we have been doing."
Accidents still can happen.
The science laboratories at New Berlin West were remodeled two years ago, adding eyewash stations and showers, as well as other safety features, said Anthony Goedheer, business manager for the New Berlin School District.
But in March, when the chemistry demonstration went awry, it was in the school's theater to accommodate the 50 students involved.
The teacher performing the experiments, Matthew Vick, was an "intern teacher" on contract with the district from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He had a chemistry degree and was working on his teaching degree, and he was allowed to teach three periods a day on his own, police reports say.
Vick could not be reached for comment.
Vick's mentor teacher, who also brought a class to the theater to watch the demonstration, was not in the room when Vick started burning a mixture of chloride and alcohol in six pie tins, part of an experiment to show students how different chlorides emit different colors when they burn.
The folding table in the theater that Vick was using to hold the tins was smaller than one he had practiced with at least three times before. He was pouring alcohol into one of the tins when a flame from a nearby tin ignited the alcohol, he told police.
Suddenly, a flame shot from the tin 20 feet into the audience, burning the clothes, hair and faces of four female students and sending the rest of their class running for the exit. Vick jumped from the stage with a fire extinguisher, unloading it on seats that glowed with flames.
Christin Schulz told police she felt the hot liquid hit her face, so she started rolling on the floor to put it out. She crawled out of the theater without opening her eyes and, with the help of another student, was led to a bathroom, where she splashed water on her face. Looking down in the sink, she could see her burned hair.
Meredith Hansen also ran into the bathroom to put water on her face. Her clothes never caught fire, but the backs of both of her hands were burned, and she had burns along the right side of her face, neck and ear.
Kara Willey, who police noted had the most extensive burns of the four girls, felt her shirt and pants catch fire after she saw the pan explode. She also rolled on the ground to put the flames out before running for the bathroom. She suffered burns to her face, hair and wrists.
Schumacher said her injuries were the least severe of the four. Schulz, Hansen and Willey could not be reached for comment.
Schumacher's shirt caught fire, and her arms and abdomen sustained burns, but her face was spared.
No lawsuits have been filed against the school district, but Schumacher said her family is contemplating legal action.
Schumacher said that it took months for her to recover from the accident and that her arms still hurt when she goes outside in direct sunlight.
But even when the scars fade, she said, she won't forget what happened that day.
"I knew right away that I was burning," Schumacher said. "I was on the ground actually, and my shirt and my arms were both on fire."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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School
Lab Accidents
I'm not mad. It just shouldn't have happened,
