Hoi Palmpie,
Dit ongeval heb ik samen met een finse collega dagenlang op de voet gevolgd. De oorzaak is ondanks uitgebreid onderzoek niet gevonden - er bleek geen spoortje gas of wat anders ook maar meetbaar te zijn. Ook zijn er geen reactieproducten gevonden. Wanneer er geen sprake was geweest van 3 levensgevaarlijk gewonde personen, hadden we dit een potentieel geval van massahysterie genoemd. Nu is dat niet waarschijnlijk (in elk geval voor de echt serieuze gewonden), maar het blijft vreemd dat er zoveel mensen onwel zijn geworden van iets wat zich blijkbaar zonder een verspreidende explosie in absurd korte tijd over een aanzienlijke afstand heeft verspreid, zelfs tegen de wind in. Echt verbazingwekkend - maar zeer waarschijnlijk geen enkele relatie met H2S.
Als je die wel wilt, heb ik hier een duidelijk (en triest) recent geval met 3 doden:
3 Men Die in Toxic Well in Queens Theodore Parisienne for The New York Times
Published: June 29, 2009
Three workers at a waste transfer station in Queens were overcome by toxic fumes Monday afternoon and died, apparently falling one after another into the Stygian gloom of a putrid, manhole-size, 18-foot-deep well they were trying to vacuum, fire officials said. The accidents occurred at a waste transfer station in Jamaica, Queens. A rope and ladder dangling into the hole, which was filled with deadly concentrations of hydrogen sulfide gas, and the accounts of witnesses at the scene suggested to the authorities that one victim had fallen first to his death and that the other two had followed in successive, futile rescue efforts.
Firefighters found the bodies — including those of a father and son — floating face down in four feet of murky water at the bottom of the hole at the Regal Recycling Company at 172-06 Douglas Avenue in Jamaica, an ugly street of waste plants, garbage scows and sheds enclosed by chain-link fences and topped by fluttering American flags. “I don’t know if they knew the exact danger,” John Sudnik, deputy assistant fire chief of the Queens Borough Command, told reporters at the scene. “In that type of atmosphere, it’s very toxic.”
The police identified the victims as Shlomo Dahan, 49, of Flushing, Queens, the owner of the S. Dahan Piping and Heating Corporation, the South Ozone Park contractor hired to clean the well; his son Harel Dahan, 23, of East 73rd Street in Brooklyn; and Rene Francisco Rivas, 52, of Jamaica Avenue in Queens, a native of El Salvador who was an employee of Regal Recycling.
The bodies were raised to the surface by firefighters using a hoist and ropes and harnesses that were carried into the well by Firefighter Robert Lagnese, 33, of Rescue Squad 270, a six-year fire veteran trained to work in confined spaces. He wore protective clothing and an enclosed breathing apparatus, and though he suffered no apparent ill effects, he was taken to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center for observation.
Chief Sudnik said the concentration of hydrogen sulfide in the hole was measured at 200 parts per million, double the amount that environmental experts consider “imminently dangerous.” He said an exposure to 50 parts per million could be lethal within 10 minutes, suggesting that concentrations four times that amount would be deadly in a much shorter time. While the source of the hydrogen sulfide in the hole was unknown, the chief called the gas a common byproduct of the decomposition of organic matter. Employees at Regal said the hole was a catch basin for runoff water that was probably laced with chemical debris from the recycling yard, where trucks deliver garbage and other materials, much of it from construction sites.
Behind the hole is a 40-foot multistory shed, with bays where the trucks pull up with materials to be sorted for recycling. Signs indicate the types: “Putrescible” and “Non-Putrescible,” separating solid wastes from those that are likely to become rotten. Another sign at the gate says: “No drums, asbestos, hazardous materials, medical waste or tires.” The industrial neighborhood, which stands on the south side of Douglas Avenue opposite the Long Island railroad tracks, is crowded with waste collection companies and adrift in odors that suggest rotting food and oil. The avenue is littered with oil stains, broken glass and dirty piles of something resembling eggplant.
Mr. Dahan and his son, who arrived at the well in a truck equipped with suction equipment to vacuum it out, were joined by Mr. Rivas. Reconstructing what happened from witness accounts and other evidence at the scene, Chief Sudnik said that Harel Dahan apparently went first into the hole, which is about 3 feet in diameter, descending a ladder affixed to a rope shortly after 2 p.m.
It was unclear how far down he went before being overcome by the toxic fumes, and it was unclear if he was killed by the fumes or drowned in the water at the bottom, officials said. In any case, when he did not return, his father went down after him. He, too, was overcome and fell into the water below. Mr. Rivas, in turn, went down, apparently in an attempt to rescue the others, and was overcome and fell to the bottom.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/30/ny...nt.html?ref=usVideo op:
http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/loca...acility_QueensSamengevat: een 23-jarige jongen gaat een put in waarin afval ligt te rotten. Hij raakt bewusteloos. Zijn vader probeert hem uit de put te krijgen, maar valt ook bewusteloos neer in het afval. Een medewerker van het recyclebedrijf waar ze op dat moment aan de slag zijn, doet een reddingspoging en belandt ook bewusteloos in de put. Brandweermensen met ademlucht halen de mannen uit de put. Zij blijken dan al te zijn overleden. De relatief lage waarde aan H2S die na aflopp van de inzet door de brandweer is gemeten, was onvoldoende om aan te overlijden Waarschijnlijk was de concentratie H2S tijdens het bewusteloos raken van de mannen veel hoger (500 - 1000 ppm), óf ze zijn overleden door een concentratie aan gassen, waaronder naast H2S ook een mogelijk hoge concentraties CO2 (verstikkend, zuurstoftekort.
