SOUTHBRIDGE —  A chlorine gas scare in a building in the former American Optical complex triggered a hazmat response shortly after 8 yesterday morning.

Acting Fire Chief Mark W. DiFronzo said workers from three companies in a Southbridge Business Center building at 15 Wells St. were evacuated for several hours when an employee at the Schott North America mistakenly mixed hydrochloric acid and sodium hypochlorite, which produced a small amount of chlorine gas.

“When the employee noticed the reaction, he immediately stopped what he was doing, donned a respirator and evacuated employees from the building,” acting Chief DiFronzo said.

He said workers in the building implemented an emergency response plan, evacuating about 100 people from Schott and other businesses in the building; they were allowed to return after about four hours.

“There were no injuries and the public was never in any danger,” he said.

Downers Grove, IL —

Downers Grove fire officials said roads have been reopened following a chemical spill at the Flavorchem Corp., 1525 Brook Drive, Downers Grove, located just north of the Finley Square Mall shopping center.

HAZMAT units were called out after a 55-gallon drum of bleach ruptured, fire officials said.

Flavorchem creates and manufactures solutions for food and beverage applications, including flavor and color development, formulations for nutritional and functional purposes, and works with masking and sweetener technologies.

Eighty people were evacuated following a chemical incident at a Croydon hotel yesterday.

Firefighters from New Addington fire station were called to the Selsdon Park Hotel, Addington Road, just before 6.43pm to reports of an automatic fire alarm going off.

When the crew arrived they discovered there was a chemical incident, with the wrong quantities of sodium hypochlorite and sodium bisulphate mixed in the hotel's leisure centre.

London ambulance were called and one person was taken to hospital suffering from the effects of inhaling chemical fumes.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- A truck driver unloading bleach from a 300-gallon plastic container was injured and most of the bleach was lost when the tank's pressure system malfunctioned and pumped bleach into the street, a fire official said Wednesday.
Acting Deputy Assistant Chief Joseph R. Desmarais said the solution of 12.5 percent bleach spilled on the leg of the driver for Roberts Chemical. He was taken to Rhode Island Hospital with an injury that was not life-threatening, Desmarais said.
The bleach was being pumped into Monarch Metal Finishing, 189 Georgia Ave, when the spill occurred at about 10:30 a.m., Desmarais said. Clean Harbors contained and removed bleach that spilled in the street, he said.

A semi-truck, traveling south on state Road 44 about five miles south of Manila, rolled spilling unknown amounts of a chlorite solution, and injuring the driver.
State Road 44, which connects from Highway 191 to Manila near Flaming Gorge, was shut down around 1:30 p.m. but was back open about an hour later, according to Utah Highway Patrol Cpl. Rex Olsen.
The driver, the only person in the truck at the time, was taken by air ambulance to a Salt Lake City area hospital, according to Daggett County Sheriff’s Office public information officer Karen Peterson.
Peterson said the spill is “a type of toxin, but it's not explosive or hazardous in any type of fire, but it can harm if touched or inhaled.”
Uintah County Fire Marshall Jeremy Raymond said a hazmat crew was dispatched from Vernal to clean up a chlorite solution, “basically a bleach solution.”
UHP Cpl. Todd Johnson said 11-12 containers filled with the bleach solution spilled, and each was damaged in some way. Our reporter on scene said the containers could have been holding 300-500 gallons.
Johnson said the spill was “above a water source, but not in a water source,” and there was “no immediate threat...to a water source.”

BRICK — Emergency crews responded Thursday morning to a Reedy Drive home for a report of a house that had become filled with fumes.

The culprit: a clogged commode.

The resident of the home, 74-year-old Robert Byrne, had poured bleach into a stopped-up toilet in his upstairs bathroom the previous night, according to Capt. John E. Rein Jr. of the township police. Noticing Thursday morning that the bleach didn’t do the trick, Byrne dumped sulfuric acid into the toilet.

The chemical mixture set off an alarming reaction, causing a foam buildup and fumes to fill the home, Rein said. The fumes caused Byrne breathing difficulties and he was sent to Ocean Medical Center in town for treatment. His dog, too, was affected by the exposure and was turned over to a relative, Rein said.

SMITHFIELD, Va. (WAVY) - Isle of Wight emergency crews responded to a HAZMAT situation in the 1400 block of South Church Street in Smithfield on April 12.

Chief Chase with IOW Emergency Management says a container of bleach vented off because of too much pressure in a 55-gallon drum barrel. Employees smelled a strong aroma of bleach in the air.

EMS and fire crews were notified and occupants were removed from the building.

Chase says there were no injuries and no fire hazard, but crews monitored the situation until the HAZMAT team arrived to remove the container.

NEWELL – The rollover of a tractor-trailer owned by Packers Logistics out of Kieler, Wis., closed part of Highway 7 just east of Newell in Buena Vista County Wednesday.

The Newell Fire Department, Buena Vista County Emergency Management, Buena Vista County Environmental Health and Zoning, and the DNR have been on site since early this morning.

The accident threw at least three chemical products into the ditch causing the containers to leak or rupture. They include three 55-gallon drums of phosphoric acid, three to five 275-gallon plastic containers of sodium and potassium hydroxide mix, and one 55-gallon drum of chlorine bleach.

"Fortunately, there have been no injuries and the chemicals do not appear to have impacted state waters," said Ken Hessenius, supervisor of the Spencer DNR field office.

SOUTH CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) -- Nine people are in the hospital after a hazmat situation at a local restaurant in South Charleston.
...
During a news conference, firefighters say an employee accidentally mixed two chemicals that were chlorine based and mixed them in a sink, causing the hazmat situation. Firefighters say the two chemicals were bleach and de-limer. Experts say when the two chemicals are combined they cause chlorine gas.

Firefighters tell WSAZ.com this could have been a deadly situation.

The restaurant was evacuated as soon as employees realized what happened.

Firefighters tell WSAZ.com when they arrived on scene a woman was semi conscious and not breathing. However, she was alert and conscious when she was taken the hospital.

Of the nine people, there is still one man that is very sick, according to firefighters.

County Hazmat crews were called Sunday night to Harriet Street in Friendship after a strong smell of bleach triggered residents' fear of a drug lab.

Starting around 9:45 p.m., Police, fire and EMS personnel gathered in the 5500 block of Harriet to check out the reports of a strong chemical odor coming from a downstairs apartment. Though Hazmat crews were standing by, no one entered the building while police interviewed residents.

However, when the residents agreed to let police and a DEA agent check the apartment, they found the smell actually was bleach the residents had been using. No one was sickened or injured, and responders left the scene by 11:40 p.m.

FIREFIGHTERS are working to contain a chemical leak in Melbourne's east.

A Melbourne Fire Brigade spokesman said about 1000 litres of hypochlorite had leaked at the SCA Hygiene factory in Box Hill South.

He said the leak was contained to a controlled area in a basement of the building and did not pose any threat to nearby homes.

Hazmat teams and eight fire trucks were on site after they received the first calls around 11.40pm.

Hypochlorite is listed as a common ingredient in bleach, disinfectant and common cleaning products.

New London — The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection said the chemical reaction reported at Lawrence & Memorial Hospital this afternoon was likely the result of an ammonia and bleach mixture, according to hospital spokesman Michael O’Farrell.
A hazardous materials team and the city fire department responded to the call, but O’Farrell said no one was injured and no evacuation was necessary. Most of the personnel who responded to the scene left by about 2:40 p.m.
O’Farrell said workers were renovating a walk-in cooler and used bleach to try to clean up an odor under a layer of flooring in the work area. Once the bleach was applied, O’Farrell said a “haze” rose from the floor and the work crew alerted hospital staff, who in turn called the New London Fire Department.

A 51-year-old man from Coventry was taken to hospital after being overcome by chemical fumes while attempting to clean his house on Sunday.

The man brushed a sulphuric acid compound on bathroom tiles at the property in Brays Lane before spraying bleach over the top.

A spokesman for West Midlands Fire and Rescue Service said the two combined to give off a "pungent gas".

Two other people in the house were unaffected by the fumes.

Bill Gough from the fire service said the man, who has since recovered, called them at about 15:00 GMT and that firefighters wearing breathing apparatus had diluted the mixture.

"What we would say to people is read the labels on the tins, bottles and jars of these particular chemicals because they do give in their instructions for use a warning that they shouldn't be used with any other cleaning fluids," Mr Gough added.

A chemical spill from a 25,000 litre freight train has closed down a railway station north of Sydney.
Emergency services were called to Morisset station just before 11am today, after track workers noticed chemical leaking out of a private freight train, Inspector Chris Sedgwick from Fire and Rescue NSW said.
The tanker is leaking sodium hypochlorite, a chemical normally used for cleaning, at a rate of about five litres per minute.
But Inspector Sedgwick said it was not yet known how much has spilled out so far.
The spill did not pose a risk to nearby residents as there was no vapour cloud, he said.

FORTY firefighters were called to deal with a chemical leak at a Luton sandwich factory on Saturday morning.

The incident occurred at Hain Celestial’s premises (formerly Daily Bread Ltd) in Britannia Estates, Leagrave Road, when a quantity of sodium hypochlorite leaked from a container, at around 8.30 a.m.

Five fire appliances and a number of specialist support vehicles from Bedfordshire and Luton Fire and Rescue Services (BLFRS) were sent to the scene, together with the ambulance service and police.

Workers in the sandwich making plant and adjacent factory units on Britannia Estate were evacuated and Leagrave Road was closed as emergency crews arrived to deal with the spillage. No local residents were evacuated.

Representatives from the Environment Agency and Thames Water also attended the scene as there were concerns that the chemical, a bleach, which had entered the on site drainage system, might enter the water courses, if not contained.

ARBUTUS, MD. — Authorities in Maryland say two women threw bleach and another chemical on each other during a fight at a Walmart, prompting officials to evacuate the store for two hours and call in a hazardous materials team.

Fire officials say 19 people had to be taken to hospitals, although only one was thought to have serious injuries. That person was taken to the Wilmer Eye Institute with a potentially serious eye injury.

Fire officials were called to the store in the Baltimore suburb of Arbutus shortly before 11 a.m. Saturday.

The Walton County HAZMAT team was called into action Monday for the first time this year after chemicals mixed to clear a clogged toilet created a toxic gas.
At about 1:50 p.m. the county’s 911 center received a medical emergency call triggered by an elderly woman’s medic alert monitor at 711 Kendall Court in Monroe. According to reports, a repairman poured “liquid fire” into the commode and later in the day the resident poured bleach into the toilet. The mixing of the two created a potentially fatal gas which caused the resident to have trouble breathing and activate her medic alert monitor. 
Emergency medical personnel were the first to respond. When fire officials arrived soon after, they in turn called out for the HAZMAT team. 
Once on the scene, HAZMAT team members suited up, entered the home and were able to clear enough of the clog for the chemicals to enter the sewage system and aired out the house. The resident was taken to Walton Regional Medical Center and treated for inhaling toxic fumes. 

ELK GROVE, Calif. -- The far right northbound lane of Highway 99 near Grant Line Road has reopened after an early-morning chemical spill.
A Sacramento fire captain told KCRA 3 that a FedEx truck spilled sodium hypochlorite, or household bleach, in the area early Tuesday morning.
From The Field: Hazmat Situation Cleared
The driver reportedly noticed the spill just before 1 a.m. and pulled over on the shoulder of the highway, until a hazardous materials crew from the Sacramento Fire Department arrived.
By about 5:30 a.m., the leak from a container in the truck appeared to be secured, and fire crews escorted the truck off the highway.

Hazardous materials crews contained a chemical spill Saturday at a water treatment plant just outside St. Helena. Authorities said there were no injuries or shelter-in-place orders.

At 4:20 p.m., employees at the Hennessey Treatment Plant reported to fire officials that 11,000 gallons of sodium hypochlorite, which is used as a disinfectant, had leaked, said California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection Capt. Tom Knecht. The plant is operated by the city of Napa, Knecht said.

The chemical was placed into portable storage tanks, Knecht said.

ST. HELENA, Calif. -- A tank containing a chemical used as a disinfectant leaked from the Hennessey Water Treatment plant in St. Helena, Napa county fire officials said Saturday.
Around 11,000 gallons of 6.5 percent sodium hypochlorite was leaking at a rate of 5 gallons a minute at the St. Helena Wastewater Treatment plant at 4:30 p.m., according to Cal Fire Capt. Tom Knecht.
Barry Biermann, a CalFire Battalion Chief, said crews were able to contain the chemical that escaped from the tank. The spill leaked through a secondary line of defense, a concrete berm, which had cracks along its base.
The faulty tank was one of nine kept behind a three-foot concrete wall designed to contain chemicals in case they escaped. Instead, the corrosive liquid started leaking through cracks.

EDINBURG - A hazardous mix of cleaning supplies is all cleaned up in Edinburg. The fire chief says what happened inside a bathroom in the Edinburg CISD transportation building can happen anywhere, even in your own home.

The woman is now out of the hospital. Friday morning, Edinburg firefighters rushed in to help a worker at the transportation building. The woman was having a reaction to the fumes coming from a trash can.

Lights and sirens signaled something wasn't right inside a bathroom at the building. Cleaning supplies tossed into a bathroom trash can caused it. Edinburg fire Chief Shawn Snider says with good reason.

"They can cause a lot of harm," says Snider.

The chief says the chemicals caused a reaction. The fumes or vapors coming from the trash can were so strong it caused a worker to have trouble breathing.

"It was a vapor, and it was an irritant to the respiratory system," says Snider.

Snider says this can happen in anyone's home. He says it's important to read the labels and never mix products.

"Our hazardous material entry team went in and identified the chemical and had a reaction to chlorine bleach," says Snider.

A team trained to handle these types of calls went in. Within an hour, the scene was cleared. The worker was later released from the hospital.

Firefighters found several cleaning supplies reacted with the bleach in cleaning wipes. The chief says it can happen anywhere if you're not careful. The best thing you can do is keep cleaning supplies out of reach of your children. According to the Centers for Disease Control, never mix bleach and ammonia.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Three Nitro city workers exposed to a chemical while collecting garbage on Monday may have been sprayed with nothing more dangerous than household bleach.

Nitro Mayor Rusty Casto said the workers were compacting trash in their garbage truck on 18th Street at about 10 a.m. when something in one of the garbage bags burst, spraying the workers with an unknown chemical.

"It looks like it was bleach," Casto said Monday afternoon. "They found bleach [in the trash] and they found weed killer."

Officials did not initially know what the men had been exposed to. Casto said two of the employees were taken to CAMC General Hospital. The third refused treatment.

PENNSVILLE TWP. — Police and hazardous materials emergency units responded to Siegfried USA on Industrial Park Road here Tuesday after  a vent line containing bleach vapors broke.

The incident took place at 11:55 a.m. during the process of making a drug substance manufactured safely for many years at the site, according to Rita van Eck, director of Human Resources at Siegfried.

The leak was immediately contained and member of Siegfried’s site emergency response team responded to the building where the incident took place, according to van Eck.

Factory workers in Crown Heights, Brooklyn braved the cold Wednesday, after a chemical explosion forced officials to evacuate their workplace.
Fire officials say someone mixed an acid into tanks of bleach stored inside industrial drums at the Sea Crest Linen Supply company, leading to an explosion just before noon.

Bleach is a commonly used ingredient in the manufacturing of linens.

Several workers were given oxygen at the scene, but no serious injuries were reported.

Some of the roughly 200 employees working at the business, which supplies linens to restaurants and hotels, described a loud explosion before they left the building.

STOCKTON - The California Highway Patrol says it doesn't know how long it will take to clean up and make guard rail repairs after a big rig fire and spill on southbound Interstate 5 in Stockton.

CHP officers received reports about the fire and a possible bleach spill on the southbound lanes of I-5 near Pershing Avenue around 8:18 a.m.

It appeared the truck driver was attempting to cross from southbound I-5 to the Highway 4 Crosstown Freeway when his rig hit the guardrail and ended up half-dangling over the overpass.

According to Officer John O'Neil, the driver made it out of the truck.

"We have reports that there have been minor injuries to the driver." O'Neil said. "He has been transported to a local hospital."

CHP Officer Rich Wetzel said about 1,000 gallons of household bleach spilled onto the freeway and Weber Street.

SLOATSBURG: Ramapo police are investigating the death of a 50-year-old village man who may have accidentally inhaled bleach while cleaning his porch Saturday.

Sgt. Mark Briggs said the man, whose name has not been released, was found in his yard about 9 a.m. He appeared to have collapsed while cleaning an outdoor deck and was taken to Good Samaritan Hospital in Suffern, where later died.

The county hazmat team was and detectives were investigating the death because of the household cleaning products he was using.

"It's more of a precautionary measure" Briggs said. Fire officials said the man might have accidentally inhaled the bleach un-mixed while using it with a liquid sprayer.

Catskill, NY 06/28/10 State Police assigned to the New York Sate Thruway investigated a tractor-trailer rollover accident which occurred at approximately 1:50am this morning. The accident occurred in the Town of Catskill in Greene County. The northbound vehicle, a tank truck owned by Slack Chemical Company of Carthage, NY, carrying approximately 4,700 gallons of hypochlorite solution, overturned and spilled about 3,200 gallons of the cargo. The driver, Robert Lawrence, age 55, of Galway, NY stated that he lost control of the vehicle when he swerved to miss a deer in the roadway. He was treated at the scene for minor lacerations and later transported to Albany Medical Center for precautionary measures. Emergency services including NYS Department of Environmental Conservation Spill Response, the Greene County Hazmat Team, a NYSP Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Unit and multiple local fire and ambulance services responded to the scene. Northbound traffic was detoured off the Thruway at the Saugerties interchange as the accident was investigated and the spill contained. Both northbound lanes were closed until 9:00am. The chemical was described as being stronger than household liquid bleach, but weaker than swimming pool shock treament, with contact being the primary hazzard. Cleanup of the spilled product is being addressed; the remaining product in the tanker was off loaded into another tanker. No tickets were issued to the driver.

A chemical alert disrupted thousands of shoppers after a bleach and water solution was thrown out of a hotel window on London's Oxford Street.

Seven people were hit by the liquid, thought to have been thrown from the Radisson Edwardian Hotel by a cleaner.

After a woman complained of skin irritation, 10 fire engines were sent to the scene at 1813 BST and officers in chemical suits moved in.

Police closed the street and held shoppers inside department stores.

The road was closed for more than an hour and led to heavy disruption for traffic in nearby streets.

A police spokesman said: "It was a combination of bleach and water.

"It was probably a cleaner who threw it out of the window."

A woman was taken to hospital Monday afternoon with first-degree chemical burns to her face, neck and head after her upper body was splashed with a five-per-cent bleach cleaning solution, paramedics said.

The incident occurred in a basement hallway of the Good Companions seniors' centre on 670 Albert St. and Empress Avenue in Centretown just after 3:30 p.m. It is not known if the four-gallon container of cleaning solution ruptured or was spilled.

The woman, in her mid-40s, is a member of the cleaning staff at the centre. She apparently did not suffer any respiratory problems, said paramedic spokesman J.P. Trottier. She was taken to hospital in serious but stable condition.

First-degree chemical burns -- the lower grade of chemical burns -- are comparable to second-degree burns from heat sources, Trottier said.

Meanwhile, the seniors' activity centre was evacuated of about 12 people while a HAZMAT team of 11 personnel worked to clean up the spill and ventilate the building, firefighters said.

WESTON, Fla. (WSVN) -- Lanes on US 27 have reopened after an overturned tractor trailer halted highway traffic.
Broward Sheriff Fire Rescue and BSO units responded to the scene in the area of southbound US Highway 27, near the entrance ramp to south Interstate 75 at around 8:00 a.m., Monday.
Reportedly, the driver of the truck was headed to Miami from Tampa, but took the US 27 exit ramp too sharply. As a result, the truck skidded about 500 feet before it stopped on I-75.
Southbound traffic on US 27 came to a stop as crews tried to upright the truck. BSFR HazMat units immediately contained an oil and bleach leak after the accident.
Rescue crews treated the driver on the scene before he was airlifted to Broward General Medical Center with non-life-threatening injuries.

Chemical spill in Golden Square probed
05 Mar, 2010 09:04 AM
CFA and the Environmental Protection Authority were yesterday investigating the scene of an accidental sodium hypochlorite leak into a drain in Golden Square.
Allingham Road was closed for a short time while officers scoured the scene of the leak, which Fire Officer Rob Bryans said happened sometime in the past week or the week before.
“We believe approximately a thousand litres of sodium hypochlorite has leaked into a drain,” he said.
“CFA and EPA were just on scene managing the situation.”
He said the chemical was a basic pool chlorine.
The spill was believed to have been “just accidental” and would be cleared from the drain.