Four pallets—roughly 1,000 pounds—of personal protective equipment, disinfectant wipes and hand sanitizer from labs across the UW-Madison College of Engineering are going to support efforts to combat the coronavirus pandemic.
As part of a broader UW-Madison campus effort, the college solicited donations of N95 respirator masks, procedure masks, Tyvek suits, face shields, hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes over the past week.
The donated equipment will primarily go to UW Hospital to bolster treatment of patients with coronavirus, but some could also go to other UW Health facilities and campus labs conducting research on the virus, according to Jesse Decker, the college’s director for safety.
Donations came from 17 faculty research labs, the Wisconsin Centers for Nanoscale Technology (shared instrumentation facilities based in the college that serve all of campus) and student organizations. The college’s student concrete canoe competition team, in particular, donated more than 500 N95 respirator masks.
Along with Decker, Peggy Conklin, executive assistant, and Pete Nemmetz, assistant dean for facilities, helped organize the collection, while staff members Eric Robson and Mitch Lange helped collect and consolidate the equipment.