Three injured as hydrogen balloon bursts at IIT-B

In a freak accident, three persons, including two interns, were injured on Friday when a balloon they were inflating with hydrogen gas suddenly burst at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B), officials said.

The incident took place outside the the Aerospace Engineering Department at the IIT-B campus in Powai here.

A former student, Tushar Jadhav, of 2012 batch, and two interns Prashant Singh and Rajat Kumar were engaged in an experiment involving the filling of hydrogen in balloons.

"It was a minor mishap. All the three persons sustained 12 per cent wounds in the mishap," an IIT-B official spokesperson said this evening.

The three injured were administered first-aid at IIT campus hospital and later sent to National Burns Centre at Airoli for further treatment of varied degrees of burn.

"All three are fine and kept under observation but will be discharged soon," the spokesperson added.

The injured interns are not students of IIT Bombay.

Jadhav, after passing out of IIT Bombay, had launched a firm called Manastu Space and later worked on a project for Society for Innovation & Entrepreneurship (SINE) at the IIT.

Interns Singh and Kumar were hired for this project by Jadhav who was also a part-time faculty in the mechanical engineering department.

--IANS

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