Toxic Public Pool Sends Kids to Hospital

[pat82]

http://shine.yahoo.com/parenting/toxic- ... 00789.html

One mom on the scene described "an explosion of acid" rising from a once serene pool, though it's unclear what officially happened around 2 p.m. yesterday to sicken as many as 80 people, according to the Star's estimate.

"We haven't reached a final determination on the cause of yesterday's incident," John T. Althardt, spokesman for the Marion County Health Department, told Yahoo! Shine Friday. The pool employee on the scene that day might have more answers, but is still recovering in the hospital along with six other patients being treated for respiratory distress.

For now, it's believed a toxic mixture of chlorine gas caused swimmers, most of them children, to suffer bouts of vomiting along with eye and lung irritation. Lt. Derrick Sayles of the Indianapolis Fire Department points to ACID Magic, a pool sanitizing solution that if imbalanced can produce a potentially dangerous level of toxicity.

 

[BoDarville]

I saw that story this morning. Guess we will have to wait and see what caused this to happen.

It does bring to mind an important safety guideline: When adding 2 or more chemicals to a pool, always add them separately - never combine them "to save time".

 

[94SupraTT]

I posted about this yesterday but the entire thread was removed. Guess it just goes to show you that TFP doesn't want anyone speaking ill of using bleach! Because that is what they were using!! And it was based on operator error. Even so, I would never want my kids nor any other family member swimming in GALLONS of household bleach! It was accident just waiting to happen and it did...going on the cheap doesn't always pan out!

According to the article the fire dept blames the improper use of "acid magic", a muriatic acid replacement as the culprit. Any chemical improperly used in high quantities is bad.

Lt. Derrick Sayles of the Indianapolis Fire Department points to ACID Magic, a pool sanitizing solution that if imbalanced can produce a potentially dangerous level of toxicity.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=U ... acid+magic

I'm not sure how acid magic differs but i do know from personal experience that once the lid is removed off of a muriatic acid container that if you are too close to the fumes/gas will absolutely make you gag. Now imagine that in high/improper quantities.

edit-both muriatic acid and acid magic are diluted concentrations of hydrochloric acid. Acid magic adds buffers of some sort.

Sent from Samsung Fascinate running ICS.

 

[Mona]

I posted about this yesterday but the entire thread was removed. Guess it just goes to show you that TFP doesn't want anyone speaking ill of using bleach! Because that is what they were using!! And it was based on operator error. Even so, I would never want my kids nor any other family member swimming in GALLONS of household bleach! It was accident just waiting to happen and it did...going on the cheap doesn't always pan out!

Well, then you best not let your kids swim in any kind of pool and stick to lakes and rivers. Active ingredient: Chlorine = Sodium hypochlorite, Bleach = Sodium hypochlorite. No matter what you call it, it is the same. You just may get it in different concentrations say from a pool store compared to a grocery store.

 

[zea3]

Kathi52 has her own anti-chlorine bleach agenda that she has advocated the entire time she has been a member of TFP. We can back up our position with solid scientific studies where as Kathi52 resorts to emotional prophesies and biased quotes from sales fliers to support her claims. By the way, her Permasalt system also uses chlorine. Activate, their twice monthly shock product is dichlor 45% available chlorine!

 

[chem geek]

There is a home for such threads called Agree to Disagree so unless the thread was violating forum rules such as promoting products, being rude, etc. then the thread should have been moved, not deleted, so I suspect it violated forum rules.