A month after a fatal fire in his organic chemistry laboratory at UCLA, Professor Patrick Harran e-mailed a state investigator with his chilling recollection of rushing in to see Sheri Sangji, his critically burned research assistant.
She sat upright on the floor, her arms outstretched.
"I kneeled down and asked what happened," he wrote Jan. 28. "She was panicky and said only there was a fire. I asked [a colleague] if he called 911 and he said yes. Sheri then began saying, 'Where are they? Where are they?' "
Sangji, 23, suffered second- and third-degree burns over 43% of her body in the Dec. 29 fire. Her death 18 days later has raised questions about UCLA lab safety practices, as well as her training and supervision by Harran, a prominent researcher who joined the faculty in July.
His account is among a series of e-mails, investigation reports and other documents obtained by The Times through a California Public Records Act request. The records provide new details on the accident and on UCLA's efforts to address its repercussions, including media inquiries.
In electronic missives to university colleagues, Harran complained that UCLA had all but hung him out to dry in the press. In one e-mail, he said that reports in two chemical industry publications "read like an indictment, without having the facts."
In another, he took issue with a UCLA investigator's report, which was detailed in a March 1 story in The Times. The report, citing previous lab deficiencies that had gone unfixed, made it "sound like I deliberately did not adhere to policy" and was part of a "culture of neglect," he wrote.
In fact, Harran said, he had made as many of the corrections as he could, given that the lab was in the process of moving to another floor and was to be reinspected afterward.
In an e-mail criticizing the investigator's findings, which included improper storage of flammable liquids, Harran cited the "pitiful state of the safety office," adding that "they offered NO training for Sheri, but you don't see that anywhere" in news accounts.
"I could go on and on, but I won't," he wrote. "Sheri was injured and died and I take responsibility. It hurts me deeply. But it just infuriates me the way the administration and staff are scrambling to protect their own [hides]. I will remember this."
