Abstract: A serious incident occurred, as Employee #1, a chemist, was handling waste materials generated from the labs at the research company. Employee #1 had collected flammable liquids during a walk through of multiple lab stations and had brought them back to the hazardous waste processing bunker located onsite. Employee #1 had collected twenty gallons of flammable liquids comprised of multiple chemicals and forming one profiled waste stream. Employee #1 said he had taken a break from pouring the flammables in to the collection drum, but had left the lids open on the drum and a carboy of the flammable liquids. Upon his return, he said that he began to examine a glass ampoule of a pyrophoric liquid he had also collected on his rounds so that he could properly profile the chemical. As Employee #1 was standing over the open, the drum, he accidentally dropped the fragile glass ampoule and it landed in the drum funnel and it broke, allowing a spontaneous reaction to occur. Employee #1 said that the chemical caught fire and ignited the flammable vapors in the drum and in the bunker around him. Employee #1 was taken to a local area hospital, where he was hospitalized for four weeks for 3rd and 2nd degree burns to his head, face, neck, hands, arms and legs.