disaster. INDUSTRIAL. Spelled it wrong. :<(
Around 1973 or so, if I recall the year, it's been a while.
I was a patrol officer in a moderate size Ohio city.
There was a very violent thunderstorm that early summer night.
Evidently lighting hit steel storage tanks outside a chemical plant and caused
an explosion.
The fire spread to other tanks and then the plant.
The E.P.A. were called in and set up test equipment.
55 gallon drums blew out of sight and some came down miles away.
There were about 60 first responders , fire, police, ambulance, etc.
Three other outside fire departments were called in.
We evacuated thousands of people when we learned the plant made pesticides.
I was in the toxic smoke for hours with protection.
Firemen began falling then soon after the police, and volunteers.
I fell hours later.
It was TWO YEARS before we learned the plant was making Agent Orange!
When I was taken to the e.r. they had just run out of atropine, a universal antidote
for poisoning.
I'm one of FIVE that has not yet developed cancer.
Some firemen got tumors in just 6 months. Several died, and one, a friend, lost
BOTH legs due to odd tumors.
To this day part of my right thigh has zero feeling in it.
One wonders if the atropine reacted with the herbicide and caused more issues than
it should have?????
I'm lucky.
Affected firemen got 100% disabilities from that fire.
Policeman.....ZERO!
Around 1973 or so, if I recall the year, it's been a while.
I was a patrol officer in a moderate size Ohio city.
There was a very violent thunderstorm that early summer night.
Evidently lighting hit steel storage tanks outside a chemical plant and caused
an explosion.
The fire spread to other tanks and then the plant.
The E.P.A. were called in and set up test equipment.
55 gallon drums blew out of sight and some came down miles away.
There were about 60 first responders , fire, police, ambulance, etc.
Three other outside fire departments were called in.
We evacuated thousands of people when we learned the plant made pesticides.
I was in the toxic smoke for hours with protection.
Firemen began falling then soon after the police, and volunteers.
I fell hours later.
It was TWO YEARS before we learned the plant was making Agent Orange!
When I was taken to the e.r. they had just run out of atropine, a universal antidote
for poisoning.
I'm one of FIVE that has not yet developed cancer.
Some firemen got tumors in just 6 months. Several died, and one, a friend, lost
BOTH legs due to odd tumors.
To this day part of my right thigh has zero feeling in it.
One wonders if the atropine reacted with the herbicide and caused more issues than
it should have?????
I'm lucky.
Affected firemen got 100% disabilities from that fire.
Policeman.....ZERO!