Tempe fire and ASU police recently collaborated with the University to film scenes in a new lab safety training video shot on campus.
The video is a CSI-inspired mystery intended to educate and entertain, providing key safety techniques and procedures through a visual narrative.
Michael Ochs, manager for the University’s Environmental Health and Safety department, said the video is a supplemental piece to a laboratory safety-training program that all students using the facilities must take.
“It’s going to give them a perspective of a lab accident, how a lab accident can occur and the methods of trying to prevent that from happening,” Ochs said.
Environmental Health and Safety conducts the required training program for ASU personnel who work in any academic, clinical or research lab with hazardous chemicals.
Ochs, who also stars in the video, said the project stems from the desire to present the material in a meaningful and memorable way with an aim to modernize the basic training video.
“The majority of the people that attend this class are probably in the early-20’s to 30’s age range,” Ochs said. “And so we thought that age group would benefit most from a multimedia video where we’re bringing in laboratory safety concepts, but we’re also doing it in something kind of current, like a CSI film, and people can relate to that.”
On Thursday evening, volunteer cast and crew met at the Interdisciplinary Science and Technology Building I to enact a mock evacuation of a laboratory building. Police officers and firefighters also helped contribute to the shoot, adding authenticity with police cars, ladder trucks and flashing lights.
Alex Gutierrez, a Tempe firefighter and ASU employee, was featured in the video coming to the rescue of a researcher who stumbled to the ground during the evacuation.
Gutierrez said participating in the video was a blast, and it was fun to be an actor for a day.
“Any time that we can get involved at the community level … we look at it as, anything that we can do to support the greater cause,” Gutierrez said. “If this video helps to save somebody’s life, that makes us feel good. That’s the reason why we’re all firefighters.”
The video is the product of a collaboration between EHS and Student Media Creative Services, a separate and distinct entity within ASU’s Student Media family. The State Press is part of the University’s Student Media department.
The project allowed people associated with laboratory sciences in the University to catch a glimpse of Hollywood, said Alana LaBelle, lab manager for the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering.
“It’s been a really great … and really educational experience for me, being on a completely different side of TVs and movies,” LaBelle said, who co-starred with Ochs in the video. “A lot of learning, a lot of hard work, but it was fun work.”
Reach the reporter at joseph.schmidt@asu.edu
