Crop-Duster’s Spray Sickens 20 Workers

More than 20 farm workers, including three pregnant women, were treated at hospitals Wednesday for symptoms of pesticide poisoning after a crop-dusting plane apparently missed its mark near Bakersfield and sprinkled the workers with toxic insecticides.

Kern County fire and agriculture officials said the plane was spraying a cotton field infested with mites and aphids when the cloud of chemicals began to drift in a slight wind. Workers harvesting grapes in an adjacent vineyard saw the plane, felt the drizzle and tried to run, the officials said.

Kevin Scott, a Kern County fire official, described a frantic scene at 10 a.m. with workers vomiting and rubbing their eyes and noses. Some had run so far away that it took rescue crews 90 minutes to count all those affected.

Hazardous-material teams set up a decontamination area at the edge of the field, complete with a portable shower.

“The workers were obviously very frightened and concerned, especially the women who are pregnant,” Scott said. “We set up screens for privacy and dressed them in medical gowns and transported 21 workers in all to three hospitals.”

Fifteen workers were treated and released and eight remained at hospitals for observation, including the pregnant women. Kern County Agricultural Commissioner Ted Davis said county and state officials have begun an investigation.

“This is a somewhat unique occurrence,” Davis said. “Usually when farm workers become ill, it’s because they have entered a field too soon after a spraying. But for a crop-duster plane to affect a mass of people, that’s not common at all.”

Davis said the pilot, who worked for San Joaquin Helicopter, told investigators that he thought that he had provided plenty of cushion to avoid spraying the vineyard. The chemicals included a highly toxic insecticide sold under the brand name Danitol and two moderately toxic insecticides known as Lorsban and Curacron.

“There was a slight breeze at the time, and unfortunately you had two fields side by side with different crops, one that was being harvested and one that was still growing,” Scott said.

The United Farm Workers union, which sent a representative to the scene, said the incident reveals a hole in the regulation of pesticides used in fields.

“For years, government and industry have claimed these chemicals are safe because regulation will protect farm workers and the public,” UFW spokesman Marc Grossman said. “Yet such pesticides are sprayed by air in an open environment where control measures often don’t work.”