http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,357083,00.html
Dozens Sickened at Japan Hospital as Suicidal Man Coughs Up
Pesticide-Laced Vomit
Thursday, May 22, 2008
TOKYO — A Japanese farmer who committed suicide by drinking pesticide
vomited the poison at a hospital before he died, releasing toxic fumes
that sickened more than 50 people, the hospital said Thursday.
Doctors were trying to pump the 34-year-old man's stomach when he
threw up, spraying his rescuers with chloropicrin, causing 54 doctors,
nurses and patients to develop breathing problems and eye sores.
Ten of them were hospitalized themselves, and 90 hospital personnel
had to be called in to help with the emergency Wednesday night, said
Tomoko Nagao, spokeswoman for the Red Cross Kumamoto Hospital in
southern Japan.
The most severely injured was a 72-year-old pneumonia patient, whose
condition worsened after exposure to the fumes, Nagao said. The
hospital's emergency ward was closed and firefighters called in to
decontaminate it.
The doctors were not wearing protective gear and were unprepared
because the paramedics who brought the farmer to the hospital had not
identified the pesticide, said a local police official, speaking on
condition of anonymity because of protocol.
The incident came amid a string of suicides in Japan by people mixing
household chemicals to create lethal fumes. Many bystanders in recent
months have been sickened by fumes that escaped into adjoining rooms,
apartments or homes.
Sei**** Takamura, a doctor who treated the farmer, said he could not
stop coughing after inhaling the fumes, which smelled like chlorine,
Kyodo News agency re****ted.
Chloropicrin is a highly volatile pesticide with a pungent odor that
can cause breathing difficulties and sometimes death when inhaled in
large amounts.
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