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August 18, 2006
I'm Not Saying It's True...
Over at Free Republic I saw a report of a strange incident at a San Francisco fire station. A man wearing goggles and surgical gloves knocked on the door and attempted to hand a bag full of white powder to the firefighter who answered.
The firefighter did not handle the bag but he said he felt a burning sensation on his face.The firefighter was hosed down and decontaminated. He was also sent to a hospital to be checked out because he still felt a burning sensation.
Hazmat crews spent about four hours testing the area and the fire station for dangerous substances, including nerve agents.
There was no mention of the results of the tests. The comments section is full of speculation about who would do this and why, and a reader named Dangerdoc chimed in with a comment that caught my eye. He responded to a previous reader who wondered what kind of powder can cause skin burning through close proximity only, without actual contact. Dangerdoc:
Any chemical will create a burning sensation merely by close proximity,If you think it will.
I've had aboout 20 people show up at the ER because they heard their building was sprayed for bugs the night before. They complained of eye irritation, throat burning, burning skin, dizziness and shortness of breath. Upon investigation, it was discovered that another building had been sprayed and the rumor was unfounded. We had no patients from the building actually sprayed.
It seems like there is one story in the media every month about incidents very similar to this ("Students sickened on school bus." "Workers overcome by fumes in stairwell." Etc.).
I'm not saying that I know what happened here. I just thought it was...interesting.
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