Cyanide Gas Kills 4 in Worker’s Mistake
A plant worker cleaning out a tank mixed chemicals releasing a cyanide cloud that killed four people and left 20 others injured, one critically, at a northeast Indiana plating company today .
“It appears like somebody--a worker--was mixing a couple of chemicals and cyanide gas resulted, and he or she dropped. And then somebody came in to help, and he dropped. It was like a domino effect,” Lt. Ken Hollingsworth of the Indiana State Police said.
“They were cleaning out a tank of zinc cyanide,” said Betty Cadou, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Management. “Whoever did the cleaning put in the wrong cleaning solution--muriatic acid. The combination of the two produces hydrogen cyanide, a powerful poisonous vapor.”
A shaken Bastian Plating Co. Vice President Dennis Fry said the accident occurred at about 5 a.m. “There was no explosion. It was an industrial accident,” he said.
He said he did not know how many workers were in the plant at the time. About 75 are employed at the factory, which produces electroplated chrome auto parts.
DeKalb County Memorial Hospital spokeswoman Maryellen Schimmoller said about 20 people were being treated for what she believed was cyanide poisoning.
One Bastian worker was transferred to Parkview Memorial Hospital in Fort Wayne, where he was reported in very critical condition.
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