The parents of a Bronx teenager whose ear was melted in a chemistry lab fire at Beacon High School is suing the city for $27 million.
The suit was filed Thursday in Manhattan Supreme Court by Yvonne and Claudio Yanes on behalf of their 16-year-old son, Alonzo.
Alonzo and another student, Julia Saltonstall, 16, of Manhattan were injured last January when their chemistry teacher poured methanol into four hot Petri dishes containing nitrates that had been aflame only moments earlier, according to a city report.
The heat combined with the methanol and the nitrates triggered a fireball that flew across the table where Anna Poole’s students were gathered.
Yanes had second- and third-degree burns on his hands and face. A custodian who responded to the put out the fire said at the time that his ear looked melted.
Saltonstall had first-degree burns on her forearms and was released after getting emergency room treatment. Her father has filed a notice of claim with the city, which says he intends to sue for $10 million.
In court papers, the Yanes family lawyer, Jeffrey Bloom, said that accident exposed “gross negligence” and “abject dereliction and reckless disregard” for the safety of students and staff by the city Department of Education.
Bloom said that only two weeks before the Jan. 2 accident, the DOE had been warned by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board that the Rainbow Experiment, which Poole was conducting, “posed risk of severe injuries if performed.”
Bloom said Alonzo’s ear is severly disfigured but he can hear. “He’s a very very creative young man. He’s the most courageous young man you’d ever meet,” said Bloom.
“He’s horribly disfigured but he went back to school in September with everyone looking at him. I can’t think of anyone I’m prouder to represent,” said Bloom, of Gair, Gair, Conason, Steigman, Mackauf, Bloom & Rubinowitz.
The experiment is designed to show students how different mineral salts produce multicolored flames when they are burned. It has since been banned from schools, sources said.
Bloom says in court papers that DOE never communicated that warning to its chemistry teachers, including Poole, who also is named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
The papers say Poole was not trained on how to do the experiment and students were not given any guidance on how to be safe or respond if the experiment went awry.
For example, the papers say, the students were not given any protective gear nor were they told that they needed it.
The papers also say that the room used as a chemistry lab at Beacon, a highly regarded public high school on the Upper West Side, “was not maintained in accordance with the NYC Department of Education’s Chemical Hygiene Plan.”
Yanes sustained injuries to his neck, face, head, torso and hands that required multiple operations and permanent scars and disfigurement, the court papers say.
His father did not return a call seeking comment.
A spokesman for the city Law Department said they’re reviewing the suit.
