USF: Overnight Lab Explosion At USF Research Park

A USF lab explosion makes headlines today after a small explosion in one of their research labs around 2:45AM. USF received a call from its alarm company, and a 911 caller around reporting the explosion. The research lab is located on a ground floor of a four story building, which is part of the USF Research Park located in the Southern portion of the USF campus.

Tampa Fire Rescue, and Hazmat crews had responded to the incident. When crews went inside the lab they found a refrigerator with its door blown off. They also saw that a window was completely shattered, which ended up being the interior portion of double-pane glass window.

Reports say that the explosion caused a full-size refrigerator door to be blown off twenty feet through the air while it flew across the entire laboratory, and ended up shattering the window, and landed near the broken glass pane, which may have been what set off the alarm company.

Fortunately no one was working in the research lab at the time, and the 911 caller was working near the lab, but she got out safely after the lab explosion. Just to continue making sure the entire building was safe, firefighters evacuated the building this morning while they worked with experts from Intezyne Technologies to figure the source of the explosion.

The CEO of Intezyne technologies, Habin Skaff told 10 News that he thinks his team can have the lab quickly cleaned up and back to its important work of creating new drugs to fight cancer soon. Skaff also says that he didn’t know what materials in the refrigerator could have caused the small explosion. The research lab is used for creating new cancer drugs.

Currently The City of Tampa Fire Marshal’s office is working with other agencies to figure out what led to the blast. The crews say that there were no harmful chemicals in the refrigerator, but they are just venting the research lab to be safe, and the entire building will be closed off until it’s cleared safe.

USF is one of the major universities when it comes to studying the advancement of medicine, science, engineering, and arts. USF is the leading university for treatment of brain disease, veterans reintegration, sustainability, and infectious disease. The USF Pediatric Epidemiology center has become the center for global juvenile diabetes research. Hopefully this USF lab explosion will be cleared up soon, so USF can get back to their life changing work.