An office worker in London, England was taken to hospital after her hair was caught in the blades of a desk fan, causing lacerations to her scalp and severe blood loss. Secretary Emily Hutnyk, aged 24, who works at a multinational telecoms company in central London, used the fan to try and cope with the record-breaking heatweave that recently struck the United Kingdom . Thermometers in the captial city rose to as high as 35 Centigrade (95 F) on July 1st, which meant if you worked in an office in London the conditions could become rather unbearable. Ms Hutnyk, like thousands of others, placed a cooling fan on her desk to help her cool down whilst working. Since desk fans are notoriously inneficient at cooling in very high temperatures, she repeatedly moved the appliance closer to her face. Tragically, her long hair suddenly got pulled in between the fan grilles and trapped in the blades with horrific consequences. It only took seconds for a large amount of hair and skin to be forcefully torn out of the girl’s head by the rotating blades of the fan. “I hardly remember it to be honest”, admitted Miss Hutnyk when interviewed later, “I think I passed out within seconds – it was my poor colleagues who had to watch it happen. I think my co-workers were acutally the traumatised ones – apparently my blood went everywhere.” Colleagues immediately called an ambulance and she was taken to hospital where doctors stitched her scalp and treated her for blood loss and shock. Her doctors are allegedly thinking about recommending implants to recover the lost hair, which was pulled out by the follicles.
A spokesperson from the company said: This was a tragic accident and we take full responsibility for not providing proper cooling facilities in 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. However a representative from the office workers trade union GMB called this measure unacceptable. The problem is that offices are not equipped to deal with such high temperatures, and ceiling fans wont do it. We are demanding that every office in the UK be fitted with air conditioners 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.
