Dog-sized rats? Mysteriously smoking drums? Booby-trapped fume hoods? In her four decade career as a safety specialist at Princeton University, Joan Hutzly has seen nearly everything the job has to offer. Joan shares some of her favorite stories in this amusing presentation from the 2022 CSHEMA Symposium on Storytelling.

While Joan recently retired from Princeton, her stories will continue to inspire as a lesson for EHS professionals and anyone curious about the risks facing employees at a large institution like Princeton, as well as a chronicle of the many ways standards and practices have improved over the decades. 

Learn more about CSHEMA, the Campus Safety Health and Environmental Management Association, at https://www.cshema.org/

A mysterious box in a campus crawlspace raises fears of an explosive device. Is EHS dealing with a dangerous package, a clue to Cold War military research—or both?  

An unexpected phone call sparks a desperate hunt for the cure to save a dying man. But what lay behind this strange request, and could Princeton EHS actually play a role in resolving what would become a sensational medical mystery? 

For the inaugural episode of EHS Stories, we delve into the fascinating tale of a dangerous radioactive accident in Palmer Physical Laboratory and its aftermath: how it impacted a legendary scientist, a young physics instructor, and, decades later, a health physicist with a dogged commitment to safety.