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from the cracked-some-eggs...-noggins-next? dept.
In a letter to nearly 1,000 patients, University Hospitals in Ohio says that a tank's remote alarm system, meant to alert an employee to temperature swings, was disabled for an unknown length of time. That led to the destruction of around 4,000 frozen eggs and embryos, double the original estimate:
Hospital officials say they doesn't know who turned the remote alarm off or how long it was disabled. They also said they were aware the tank in question needed preventative maintenance. Some of the eggs and embryos had been stored there since the 1980s. The hospital's investigation is ongoing.
"Right now we do not know whether it's mechanical or human or [a] combination," said James Liu, chairman of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at University Hospitals.
He says he doesn't think anyone intentionally disengaged the alarm. "Because it is a computer, we think it's unlikely that there was any kind of external force that was working to hack the computer or anything like that. We think it's unlikely," Liu said.
Previously:
Freezer Malfunction May Have Damaged Up to 2,000 Frozen Eggs and Embryos
Two Fertility Clinic Freezer Failures Occurred in a Single Day
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 28 2018, @11:22AM (2 children)
So, the disabled alarm was the cause of the failure? Seriously, the cause of the failure is that the freezer broke down... not that a safety measure was not working. Makes you wonder how often they tested their safety measures.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 28 2018, @11:32AM (1 child)
and we still would like to know what happened to the other freezer that failed elsewhere the same day...
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Wednesday March 28 2018, @01:12PM
No, no, no, you are supposed to pay attention to THIS freezer. The other freezer was the one where they kept the alien-human hybrids.