Helen,
I think most histo labs have a problem with slippery floors. Here we have 
non skid floor mats with nubby surfaces to "scrub" the loose paraffin from 
our shoes in the embedding area and as you walk from the "lab" area to the 
"office" area. We also use those sticky mats that we get from VWR - kind of 
like human fly paper - to get the paraffin before it is tracked. And of 
course we routinely scrape the floor under our chairs in the cutting area 
to get rid of paraffin that may have fallen on the floor from cutting. We 
make an effort to be "neater" and pick up loose paraffin from the floor 
before it gets tracked. These are low cost ways to handle the problem but 
very effective in our lab.
Be thankful that the person was not seriously hurt...in a lab where I once 
worked a nite shift tech came into the histo lab to bring in a specimen and 
did (from what I was told) quite an impressive skating routine in front of 
the processor before she hit the floor and broke her leg. Now the info gets 
interesting because she had come to work from a Christmas party and was 
wearing street shoes with leather soles. Didn't matter - she sued. We went 
through months of depositions and interviews. Her lawyers made a video in 
our lab to demonstrate why the floor could have been slippery. I thought it 
would never stop. She finally got a settlement and life went on. We got a 
new floor in histo - some non-skid tile. Looked nice, everybody else was 
jealous!!
Good luck!
Andi Grantham

At 01:01 AM 2/25/03 +0800, you wrote:
>Dear histonetters.  I wonder if anyone could share with me the way they 
>deal with slippery floors in the paraffin sectioning area.  The story is 
>like this.  Somebody from another lab entered our paraffin sectioning room 
>(waxed vinyl flooring) in a pair of leather shoes.  She slipped.  We are 
>not sure how it happened because none of us was there.  Was the accident 
>caused by a little bit of spilt water on the floor, high heel leahter 
>shoes or what?  The safety officer of our department got the report and 
>wanted to prevent such things from happening again.   He believed that the 
>slippery floor was caused by wax trimmings that had fallen off the 
>bench-top onto the the floor.  In fact, long time age there was an article 
>in a British journal supporting this view.  (The solution in the article, 
>as far as I can remember vaguely, is the replacement of vinyl with textile 
>type of flooring, but maintenance could be a problem).  He also worried 
>that tiny bits of wax trimmings could be carried on our lab coats to other 
>places in the department.  Our department wanted us to submit some 
>suggestions within 2 months to prevent similar accidents.   So, what do 
>you think?  In the meantime, we try to keep the floor dry at all times, 
>clean the bench of wax trimmings  2-3 times during and after sectioning, 
>and put up warning signs around our 'slippery sectioning area'.  However, 
>our department wants further suggestions and they may be willing to pay 
>for a change of the flooring.  But of course, we don't want to make dumb 
>suggestions that waste money before the cause of the accident is clear. 
>Any of your suggestions would be a great help to us.   Recommendations 
>from specialist in laboratory deisgn and flooring are also 
>welcome.  Thanks in advance.
>Helen Lam
>Hong Kong

.....................................................................
: Andrea Grantham, HT(ASCP)     Dept. of Cell Biology & Anatomy     :
: Sr. Research Specialist       University of Arizona               :
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