Don’t Get Too Close To Your Desk Fan – A Warning

A young British woman working in an office in London was seriously injured recently when her hair was trapped by the blades of a desk fan, leading to servere blood loss and lacerations to the scalp. 24 year old admin assistant Emily Hutnyk, employed by a large tele-communications corporation in the center of London, used the fan to try and cope with the heatwave that recently hit the UK . Temperatures in London soared to a record-breaking 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) in early July, leading to unbearable working conditions in many workplaces. Just like many other office workers, Miss Hutnyk put a small fan on her desktop in order to stay cool while trying to work. However the heat and humidity was so intense that she kept moving the fan closer to her face to try and get the most out of it. Tragedy struck when her long blonde hair became trapped within the grilles of the desk fan and got pulled in by the rotating blades. Only a few seconds later a clump of the victim’s long blonde hair had been caught by the blades and forcefully pulled out of her scalp, together with a significant amount of skin. “It all happened so quickly, “ said Ms Hutnyk later, “it sounds horribly painful but to tell you the truth I passed out pretty quickly and thankfully I didn’t really know much about it. The others in the office later said there was blood everywhere - they were more traumatised than me I think.” An ambulance was called and she was rushed to hospital, where she required 12 stitches on her scalp. Doctors are said to be considering hair implants to repair the damaged scalp once the wound has healed fully.

An official from the telecomms firm later called the incident “an unfortunate accident, which we are taking steps to ensure never happens again by reviewing the cooling needs of the office. We will be fitting each office with a ceiling fan and banning the use of desk fans to prevent these kinds of incidents in the future.” For general workers union GMB, however, this response was completely inadequate. “The root cause of such disasters is that we don’t have equipment or laws in place in workplaces to help us cope with hot weather - ceiling fans aren’t enough. We are demanding that every office in the UK be fitted with at least a portable air conditioner both to help people concentrate on their work and ensure this kind of tragedy never happens again.” The union is advising Ms Hutnyk to consider taking legal action against the company for breach of health and safety regulations.