Buffalo Wild Wings Death – Sorry, Accidents Happen – Was Chlorine Gas Poisoning, Like WWI Trenches

A report from the US about a restaurant employee who died as a result of, well, as a result of an accident. This won’t stop the lawyers of course but accidents do indeed happen.

Here the cause is the mix of bleach and acid. That’s one of the things that will just kill you. Sorry and all that but it will:

An accidental mix of cleaners — acid and bleach — generated toxic fumes that killed the manager of a Buffalo Wild Wings in Massachusetts, authorities said Friday.

Always, but always, don’t mix cleaning agents:

But that employee did not know that an acid-based cleaner, Scale Kleen, had been spilled on the floor earlier, Patterson said. So when the worker used chlorine- and bleached-based Super 8 on the floor, the mixture turned green and started to bubble, Patterson added.

Green – chlorine gas. As is well known:

Chemistry is all about mixing things. But you have to know what you are doing. A lady was complaining to a neighbor about an infestation of mice in her house. The well-meaning friend had a suggestion. Mix some toilet bowl cleaner with bleach in a container and leave the concoction in the house overnight. Guaranteed to get rid of the mice, she said. But she neglected to say that it could get rid of the human inhabitants as well. Permanently. Chemically speaking, bleach is a solution of sodium or calcium hypochlorite. When mixed with any acid, it releases highly toxic chlorine gas. Most toilet bowl cleaners contain sodium hydrogen sulfate, an acid which will quickly liberate chlorine from bleach. The acrid fumes of chlorine can destroy lung tissue, cause the lungs to fill with water and in a sense cause death by drowning. Chlorine gas was of course used for this purpose in World War I. Our mouse-fearing lady almost suffered the same fate as did the French troops at Ypres at the hands of the Germans. Luckily her neighbor looked in to see how the experiment was going and saved her just as she was about to pass out. Not every victim of this mixture turns out to be so lucky. Many who have poured bleach into a toilet bowl following an unsuccessful attempt to remove stains with a commercial cleaner have suffered permanent lung damage and some have died. No acid must ever be mixed with chlorine bleach. This includes acidic drain cleaners, rust removers and even vinegar.

Or, at least, this should be well known. Horrible, of course, but also an accident, one of those things that happens.