54 people sickened by suicidal patients toxic vomit

[Uncle B]

Fifty-four people were sickened at a hospital by toxic fumes from the vomit of a man who apparently attempted suicide
by swallowing pesticide Wednesday night, police said.

The toxic gas, believed to be a vaporized form of liquid pesticide, came from a 34-year-old farmer from Koshi, Kumamoto Prefecture, who was undergoing treatment at the Japanese Red Cross Kumamoto Hospital emergency room in Kumamoto at about 11 p.m.

Doctors, nurses, visiting patients and their families who inhaled the toxic fumes suffered pain in their eyes and throat. Ten of them were admitted to the Red Cross hospital and other hospitals. One of the 10, a 72-year-old woman, suffered breathing difficulty and was in serious condition Thursday.

The man was later confirmed dead from pesticide poisoning.

According to the police, rescue workers and the hospital, the pesticide was chloropicrin, a substance designated as toxic under law.

At about 10 p.m. Wednesday, the farmer's wife placed an emergency call, reporting her husband had collapsed after swallowing pesticide. Rescue workers found the man near the entrance to his house. There was distinctive pungent odor at the scene, and the man was sent to the emergency room at the hospital.

The man vomited while having his stomach pumped, and odorous toxic gas spread through the emergency room. Thirty-one hospital staff members, including doctors, and 23 outpatients and their families were sickened. About 20 of them were in treatment rooms, and others were in the waiting lounge.

Hospital staff who were not sickened evacuated the sickened people to the lobby and provided intravenous drips and oxygen.

The 10 hospitalized people included the doctor who treated the man, the man's 36-year-old wife and his 60-year-old mother.

The woman listed in serious condition was about 10 meters away from the man at the time of the incident. She had gone to the hospital for treatment of kidney failure and pneumonia.

Among 44 people who suffered minor health problems were two 1-year-old babies and two 3-year-old children.

The Kumamoto prefectural police found an empty bottle of chloropicrin in a field near the dead man's house. The man's father reportedly told the police that he smelled chloropicrin before the man's wife made the emergency call. The man told his father that the bottle was in the barn, where the family kept pesticides. The father found a nearly empty bottle of chloropicrin at the barn, and he threw it into a nearby field, the police quoted the father as saying.

The emergency center was closed Thursday morning.

Seishi I, head of the emergency center, said Thursday the hospital was not informed of the correct name of the pesticide when it admitted the man. Because rescue workers said it was picrin, not chloropicrin, the hospital staff could not find the proper treatment guidelines on the Japan Poison Information Center network.

"If we had known what kind of pesticide it was, we could have evacuated other patients in advance," the emergency room head said.

The hospital did not have guidelines in place in the event of a chemical accident. Some emergency facilities have a manual on how to treat a patient who has swallowed poison.

Rescue workers usually bring the bottle of the chemical the patient is believed to have swallowed, but they did not this time because of the strong odor.