But it turned out the truck had carried peppers from California to Texas last week. And the shipment's spicy residue apparently caused the workers to develop symptoms like those caused by pepper spray, officials said.
Emergency crews responded to a report that workers at Lane Venture in Conover, about 40 miles northwest of Charlotte, experienced nausea, sore eyes and a bad taste while unloading a shipment of furniture, said Catawba County Emergency Management Director Dave Weldon.
Firefighters found no problem with the oxygen level at the site, Conover Fire Chief Mark Hinson said. But three firefighters who went into the truck developed symptoms, Hinson said.
Emergency workers took three people to the hospital and decontaminated about 10 others, including the firefighters, by spraying them with water, officials said.
Officials contacted the El Paso company where the truck originated, Weldon said, and learned that it had hauled open pallets of dried arbol chilies -- a red pepper described on cooking Web sites as "fairly hot" and similar to cayenne -- last week.
The Texas company reported that workers who cleaned the truck also reported feeling ill, he said.
Doctors who treated the Conover workers said their symptoms were consistent with those produced by pepper spray, Weldon said.
The workers were treated and released, he said.
The symptoms made sense, Weldon said, once officials knew about the peppers. By then, a Charlotte-based hazardous materials team was on the way.
The hazmat workers verified that pepper residue -- which had settled over the truck's contents -- was the culprit, Weldon said.
Officials sealed the truck and sent it back to Texas for decontamination, he said.
