A young British woman working in an office in London was seriously injured recently when her hair was trapped by the blades of a desk fan, causing lacerations to her scalp and severe blood loss. Secretary Emily Hutnyk, aged 24, who works at a multinational telecoms company in central London, used the fan to try and cope with the record-breaking heatweave that recently struck the United Kingdom . Thermometers in the captial city rose to as high as 35 Centigrade (95 F) on July 1st, which meant if you worked in an office in London the conditions could become rather unbearable. Just like many other office workers, Miss Hutnyk put a small fan on her desktop in order to stay cool while trying to work. However the heat and humidity was so intense that she kept moving the fan closer to her face to try and get the most out of it. Tragically, her long hair suddenly got pulled in between the fan grilles and trapped in the blades with horrific consequences. Only a few seconds later a clump of the victim’s long blonde hair had been caught by the blades and forcefully pulled out of her scalp, together with a significant amount of skin. “It all happened so quickly, “ said Ms Hutnyk later, “it sounds horribly painful but to tell you the truth I passed out pretty quickly and thankfully I didn’t really know much about it. The others in the office later said there was blood everywhere – they were more traumatised than me I think.” She was rushed to the nearest hospital by ambulance, where she was treated for blood loss, scalp wounds and shock. Once her head wounds have fully recovered Miss Hutnyk may consider hair implant surgery, as some of the hair that was pulled out may never grow back.

“This was a terrible accident,” said a company spokesman later. “It is something we want to avoid happening again and we’ll be reviewing the provision of cooling appliances in the office. We will be fitting each office with a ceiling fan and banning the use of desk fans to prevent these kinds of incidents in the future.” For general workers union GMB, however, this response was completely inadequate. “The root cause of such disasters is that we don’t have equipment or laws in place in workplaces to help us cope with hot weather – ceiling fans aren’t enough. We are demanding that every office in the UK be fitted with at least a portable air conditioner both to help people concentrate on their work and ensure this kind of tragedy never happens again.” The advice from union officials to Miss Hutnyk is to sue her employers, as this constitutes a breach of health and safety law.