17 September 2010

Fountain cleaning follies

| johnboy
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This in from the ESA:

10:00am Friday 17 September 2010 – Small chemical incident in City ACT Fire Brigade on scene of a small chemical incident near Legislative Assembly, London Crt Civic.

Workmen cleaning a fountain have mixed cleaning chemicals together producing fumes.

No evacuations of nearby buildings.

ACT Ambulance Service also on scene has assessed two patients and will transport to Calvary Hospital for observation.

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for sunshine was the guy laughing, the older of the two?

i was walking past just as they did this and managed to inhale a fair bit of the fumes – but continued on my way, coughing and spluttering – am fine now. one of the guys was busy throwing up on the side of the road whilst the other one was laughing his head off, before the firetruck arrived – that made him stop laughing pretty quickly

creative_canberran6:37 pm 17 Sep 10

This should be a warning to people at home as it is surprisingly common how often this happens in laundries and kitchens.
If you mix agents containing chlorine (bleech, hydrochloric acid) and ammonia, it will release chlorine gas (historically used as a chemical weapon). Mixing floor cleaner with a spill in the laundry or mixing the wrong agents in a High School Science lab experiment can be nasty.

Maybe they just have an arbitrary map – people picked up Northside go to Calvary, Southside to Woden, possibly with a grey area around the inner suburbs in case one hospital is particularly busy?

Remember that they are in the business of assessing people and taking them to hospital if warranted. I’m sure they don’t just make it up as they go along.

Rawhide Kid Part31:12 pm 17 Sep 10

Monster of the Deep said :

I’d be guessing Calvary. Now I’m curious why you wanted to know!

From my side of the desk it looks pretty even distance and time wise. So I was just thinking what decision processes went in the decision to go to Calvary. Was it because the Ambulance came from a station on the north side? I know I should have better things to think about. But……….

Rawhide Kid Part31:09 pm 17 Sep 10

p1 said :

When I hear of an incident involving fountains and cleaning products I think of dumping a whole packet of washing detergent in and watching the mountain of bubbles.

The good old days

la mente torbida1:06 pm 17 Sep 10

‘Workmen cleaning a fountain have mixed cleaning chemicals together producing fumes.’

oops…who woulda thunk it?

When I hear of an incident involving fountains and cleaning products I think of dumping a whole packet of washing detergent in and watching the mountain of bubbles.

Monster of the Deep11:45 am 17 Sep 10

I’d be guessing Calvary. Now I’m curious why you wanted to know!

Rawhide Kid Part311:00 am 17 Sep 10

Just a thought. Which Hospital is closest to this incident, Calvary or Canberra?

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