Four DuPont employees are dead and a fifth hospitalized Saturday after a chemical leak at a plant near Houston.
The employees were working at the DuPont manufacturing facility in La Porte, Texas, when the chemical, methyl mercaptan, began to leak at around 4 a.m. Central Time.
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A DuPont spokesperson would not divulge how the company learned of the leak, but said that the Harris County Medical Examiner pronounced four of the workers dead at the scene. The chemical, used to make insecticides and fungicides, is liquid when it is contained, but becomes a gas when it is released and mixes with oxygen, the rep said. “This is a tragic loss for the entire Du Pont family, our thoughts are with the family members as they continue to process the loss of their loved ones.” h/t yahoonews
The company would not release the names, ages or genders of the victims, at the request of their families.
Clinical Effects of Acute Exposure include,
• Ocular exposures: Methyl mercaptan is an eye and mucous membrane irritant.
It may cause moderate conjunctivitis and diplopia.
• Dermal exposures: Exposure may result in redness, irritation and swelling.
Frostbite injury can occur from dermal exposure to liquid methyl mercaptan.
• Inhalation exposures: Symptoms may include fever, cough, dyspnea, tightness
and burning in the chest, dizziness, headache, loss of sense of smell, nausea,
vomiting and diarrhea. Inhalation may cause CNS depression, respiratory
irritation, respiratory paralysis, pulmonary edema, tremors and seizures. It may also
cause liver and kidney damage, tachycardia and hypertension.
Methemoglobinemia and severe hemolytic anemia with hematuria and protenuria
have been reported in a patient with G-6-PD deficiency.
• Ingestion exposures: Ingestion is unlikely, but irritation of the mouth, throat and
esophagus are possible effects. source
