A University of Rochester lab engineer remains in guarded condition in the intensive care unit. A metal pipe fell on his head while he was working Wednesday night. Sam Roberts was working in the University's laser lab, doing a routine operation when the accident happened. News 10NBC spoke with firefighters who responded to the scene.

Rochester Firefighter Alan Dicarlo never knows what he will find when he gets to the scene of a call. He said going to the U of R’s laser lab was bad.

“He was in bad shape. There was quite a bit of blood, where this plate hit him he had a large cut on his face, very very deep,” Dicarlo said.

Dicarlo said every second counted. “You move faster, you move at 100mph instead of 90,” he said.
    
Sam Roberts, a SUNY Geneseo graduate, has worked in the lab nine years is a senior lab engineer in the University of Rochester Laser Lab. A spokesperson with the university said Roberts was doing routine work when the accident happened.

“A fairly routine operation on a valve,” U of R Spokesman Larry Arbeiter said. “It’s something that’s done several times a day, when for reasons we haven’t determined, the bracket broke lose. It seems to be a purely mechanical failure.”
 
Officials still don't know why it broke. Roberts was wearing a protective suit, and he was working on the omega laser. The metal pipe inside the laser weighs roughly 200 pounds. The bracket broke and that's what came crashing down on his face.
    
It was something Dicarlo said he's never seen. “I’ve never seen a plate like this, that big, something that heavy hit someone that hard, such a large gash on his face.”
    
Co-workers tried giving Roberts CPR but it wasn't until fire and ambulance crews got there that Roberts became conscious again.

“Hopefully we saved this guy,” Dicarlo said. “He didn't have a pulse when he first got there and by the time we were leaving the scene he had a pulse.”

OSHA is investigating this accident. As for right now, all work in the lab where this happened has stopped.