The course’s “LPSA Introduction and Lab Safety” handout, distributed to students at the start of the semester, declares that “Massachusetts state law requires that goggles, a face shield, or prescription safety glasses be worn by every student at all times while he or she is in the laboratory. No exceptions will be made.”

Although she says the class “never really learned about UV safety,” the lab teaching fellows had “reinforced” the need to always wear safety goggles in the lab throughout the semester, Adeyemi says.

“As soon as you walk in, it’s the rule that you have to put on goggles,” Julia B. Hyman ’15 says.

But that afternoon, three days before the end of fall semester classes, Adeyemi says that “everyone was in a lazy kind of mood.”

“It was last-lab fever,” Hyman adds.

“In my mind, I was like, ‘oh, we’re not working with fire or chemicals, so it should be okay.’” Adeyemi recalls.

But while Cheng and Hyman say that the transilluminator that they were working had the protective screen pressed down on the sample, Adeyemi says that in some stations in her section, the protective screen was not always pushed down.

As a result, she and several other students without goggles gazed at their samples with no barrier to block the ultraviolet light emanating from the transilluminator.

“Our TFs have been really great about lab safety. They’ve been really strict about it,” Adeyemi emphasizes. “It was like the one day they weren’t.”

When Adeyemi transferred to the Eye and Ear Infirmary at 5 a.m. on Wednesday morning she was met there by a man from the Freshman Dean’s Office, who told her that all her schoolwork would be excused. Later that day, she received “really sympathetic and apologetic” emails from her teaching fellow, her two LPSA professors, her proctor and her residential dean.

The Office of the Dean of the College also told Adeyemi that it would reimburse all medical costs accrued as a result of the accident.

While Adeyemi said that her father “was initially a little upset” when she told him about what had happened, she insists that she holds no lasting grudges.

“This is not a situation where blame needs to be assigned,” she says.

—Staff writer Rebecca D. Robbins can be reached at rrobbins@college.harvard.edu.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

CORRECTIONS: December 4, 2011

An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified Harvard University Health Services. Additionally, due to an editing error, that same version featured a headline that reported that students experienced retinal burn after the lab. While one student was told that she may have suffered from a retinal burn, the extent of other students' eye injuries are unclear.