An office worker in London, England was taken to hospital after her hair was caught in the blades of a desk fan, causing lacerations to her scalp and severe blood loss. 24 year old admin assistant Emily Hutnyk, employed by a large tele-communications corporation in the center of London, used the fan to try and cope with the heatwave that recently hit the UK . Temperatures in London soared to a record-breaking 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) in early July, leading to unbearable working conditions in many workplaces. Just like many other office workers, Miss Hutnyk put a small fan on her desktop in order to stay cool while trying to work. Since desk fans are notoriously inefficient at cooling in very high temperatures, she repeatedly moved the appliance closer to her face. However her long hair, swept around by the wind caused by the fan, swept in between the grilles and got caught in its whirling blades. 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. “I hardly remember it to be honest”, admitted Miss Hutnyk when interviewed later, “I think I passed out within seconds – it was my poor colleagues who had to watch it happen. I think my co-workers were acutally the traumatised ones – apparently my blood went everywhere.” She was rushed to the nearest hospital by ambulance, where she was treated for blood loss, scalp wounds and shock. Her doctors are allegedly thinking about recommending implants to recover the lost hair, which was pulled out by the follicles.

“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 overhead ceiling fans and banning the use of desk fans to prevent these kinds of incidents in the future.” However a representative from the office workers trade union GMB called this measure unacceptable. “The problem is that offices are not equipped to deal with such high temperatures, and ceiling fans won’t do it. We are demanding that every office in the UK be fitted with full air conditioning both to help people concentrate on their work and ensure this kind of tragedy never happens again.” The union is advising Ms Hutnyk to consider taking legal action against the company with help of rizklaw.com for breach of health and safety regulations.