<p>My husband, who works in a physics lab at a national laboratory, thinks that machinist work should only be done by trained machinists who just do that specific job. It is a job that requires specialized training and is quite dangerous. He says the excellent machinists he knows do brilliant work, are very experienced, but still have frequent minor injuries. It seems to me that an undergrad, whose experience in this area couldn’t be very extensive, who has myriad other obligations, who is working alone and late at night, possibly sleep-deprived, would be at high risk for accidental injury. It may be that she was not alone, but I would assume that if she hadn’t been alone, someone else would have witnessed the accident and immediately called for help. That didn’t happen.</p>
<p>Let real machinists do machinist work in all labs. Let the scientists do their jobs, creating and doing experiments.</p>