The risks of working for Apple: Employees have been injured during prototype testing

A leaked incident report reveals that over 70 workplace accidents occurred in just one month at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, California, many of which were to do with the testing of intriguing new product prototypes we've never yet heard about.

The incident report was compiled by an environmental health and safety contractor hired by Apple. The document was accidentally emailed to hundreds of Apple employees on 14 April and a copy was shown to Gizmodo.

The accidents range from mundane ones, such as a cafeteria employee burning his hand while removing fish from an oven; an employee complaining of being light headed and feeling stressed; or an employee dropping something on their toe in the testing laboratory; to serious incidents, such as an Apple minivan that struck an employee walking at a pedestrian crossing on 21 March.

Sources in Apple believe that the minivan was likely being used to collect data for Apple Maps. The employee in question fell back several feet after being hit by the van and sustained minor injuries.

Then there was an incident on 29 March, where an employee opened a box of used Apple Pencils and found that two of the devices were leaking electrolytes from the lithium ion batteries within them, producing a strong odour.

There's also the Apple Watch team, which were sent on a two-day skiing trip at Lake Tahoe in the Sierra Nevada to collect "core motion data", to see how well the product could tracking skiing and snowboarding activities. Sadly, one of the employees injured his knee during the activity, but you're probably not feeling very sorry for him.

Eye injuries were reported from several employees who were testing out some sort of prototype that required people to interact with and watch images produced by the product.

One employee had to see an optometrist after a laser flashed in her eye several times during the study of the device, while another employee experienced eye pain after working with a prototype. Since Apple's chief executive Tim Cook has previously shown a strong interest in augmented reality (AR), it is believed that the device could be some sort of headset or glasses that comes with an overhead display.

Whatever it is, it sure seems like Apple is a slightly more dangerous environment to work in than most offices, where almost nothing ever happens.