Drink Machine Becomes Chemical Weapon

Aaron · Post by **Aaron** » 2004-06-26 12:34am

ABC News wrote:United States Homeland Security officials were notified after an exploding vending machine turned the coolant freon into phosgene, a poisonous gas used as a chemical weapon in World War I.

The explosion forced the evacuation of 10 people from a Texas hospital.

A food service employee was working on the refrigerated soft drink machine at the Park Place Medical Centre in Port Arthur, Texas, when a small explosion and fire occurred inside it, Port Arthur Fire Marshal Mark Mulliner said.

"When freon gas from the cooling system came into contact with the heat from the fire, it changed composition to a phosgene gas," Mr Mulliner said.

Phosgene irritates the lungs, eyes, mouth and nose and, in strong enough concentrations, causes fatal amounts of fluid to build up in the lungs.

Ten people on the third floor of the hospital had to leave for several hours while the area was ventilated, Heather Ross of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality said.

Two firefighters were kept in the hospital overnight for observation, Ms Ross said.

"We were fortunate one of our officers who was first on the scene had some familiarity with phosgene and quickly evacuated the area," Mr Mulliner said.

Ms Ross said state Homeland Security officials had to be notified of the incident because of phosphene's possible use as a chemical weapon.

Mr Mulliner said the incident appeared to be a "freak accident".

"I've been here 27 years and I've never seen anything like this," he said.

--Reuters

Phosgene, thats some nasty shit.

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2004-06-26 01:13am

Nasty. The design of vending machines should be changed to avoid possible danger from poison gas.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-06-26 01:15am

Quick, check Iraq to see if Saddam has any soft-drink vending machines!! WE'VE FOUND HIS WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION!!!

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2004-06-26 03:24am

evilcat4000 wrote:Nasty. The design of vending machines should be changed to avoid possible danger from poison gas.

If you find a replacement for Freon in air conditioning units you will easily make several billion dollars. Or we could simply not care about the situation because it's a freak accident that hurt no one. It takes a quite high concentration of phosgene to kill you, when it was used as a chemical weapon about the only way it do it was release thousands of tons of the stuff in huge all engulfing clouds.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2004-06-26 02:23pm

Obviously the new models learn not to use such a nasty gas by instead having a VX mixture. I'll make millions!