NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. -- An employee of a Hyde Park Avenue environmental services company is in serious but stable condition after suffering severe burns during a chemical spill Friday morning.
The man, whose name has not been released, was cleaning a tanker truck when the chemical iodine pentafluoride leaked from the truck's tank.
"He suffered first-, second-, and third-degree burns on his arm," Falls Fire Chief William MacKay said. "He's condition had been critical, but it has now been upgraded to serious."
Falls firefighters were first alerted to the spill at Tier Environmental Services, 33 S. Hyde Park Blvd., just before 10 a.m. when a call came in reporting a "medical emergency."
Firefighters from the Royal Avenue fire hall arrived and were greeted by what was described as "a visible cloud of vapor." Other employees at the business were evacuated and the first firefighters on the scene withdrew from the building because of the chemical exposure inside.
Four firefighters and four Tier employees were taken to Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center after they were exposed to chemical vapors.
"They are being evaluated, but it appears they did not suffer any serious injuries," MacKay said. "We're confident they'll be released (sometime Friday evening)."
As a precaution, the southern section of the Robert Moses Parkway was closed to traffic for about four hours while firefighters, state and federal environmental agencies and a Haz-Mat response team from the Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station tried to contain and clean up the spill. Workers in four neighboring buildings were told to stay indoors until the situation was under control.
"(The Tier employees) were engaged in the process of cleaning out one of the over-the-road tank cars and had a chemical release," MacKay said. "Our crews recognized that this was much more than a routine medical emergency."
Members of the Haz-Mat unit, wearing Level A contamination suits, entered the building just before noon in an effort to determine if the chemical posed any threat of leaking off the site and to determine what the chemical was.
By late afternoon, MacKay and officials from the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Environmental Conservation and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration determined the spill had been contained.
"Right now, we have no migration of the material off site," MacKay said. "We know it is contained."
At that point, the fire chief said, the spill no longer posed a public health risk.
Iodine pentaflouride is described as very corrosive and presented the Haz-Mat team with some challenges as they tried to collect samples of the chemical.
"We tried to take a sample of the material and it literally melted the sampling device, so we (knew) we (were) dealing with a very caustic substance here," MacKay said.
Because iodine pentaflouride is a strong flourination agent that is highly oxidative, MacKay said the chemical is toxic if it's inhaled and, in severe cases, can produce pulmonary edema.
By late Friday afternoon, the Haz-Mat team and firefighters were preparing to turn over the final cleanup of the facility to a private contractor that had been hired by Tier. Officials from Tier's corporate headquarters near Philadelphia were reportedly on their way to the Falls and expected to arrive late Friday night.
We still have a situation that is a little corrosive, so we're evaluating it and determining when we can turn it over to the contractor," MacKay said a late afternoon news conference.
MacKay said Tier will be responsible for the complete cleanup of the site and for the costs of first responders.
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
