I have personally heard of a pathology lab receiving a misdelivered brain specimen from a patient with CJD. Specimen was supposed to go to a state Department of Health and somehow ended up in the lab of a podunk little hospital, which didn't even have pathology services. The clinical lab staff didn't know what to do with it and were intrigued, so they OPENED THE CONTAINER. Someone finally had the sense to read the fucking submission paperwork and realized it was a possible CJD specimen and not for them. That was around the time that they discovered they didn't have anything on hand that would disinfect prions*. Someone had to drive 3+ hours with a bunch of formic acid to help them decontaminate, and the entire incident was immediately hushed up. I never heard how the specimen not only got routed to the wrong place, but somehow ended up at a hospital without a pathology department, but the whole thing sounded like a goddamn clusterfuck.
*Prions are
extremely resistant to conventional sterilization methods, including alcohol, ammonia, hydrogen peroxide, UV light, microwave, and heat, and are transmissible after formalin fixation. They can even survive autoclaving.