Rotten Office Fridge Cleanup Sends 7 To Hospital

bokske writes "An office worker cleaning a fridge full of rotten food created a smell so noxious that it sent seven co-workers to the hospital and made many others ill. Firefighters had to evacuate the AT&T building in downtown San Jose on Tuesday, after the flagrant fumes prompted someone to call 911. A hazmat team was called in. Just another day at the office."

Comments

Paaaleeese

[FredFredrickson]

It's one thing if spores cause an infection- but going to the hospital cause you don't like a smell? I mean come on. Grow a pair, you know?

Bring on the comments about how so-and-so knows somebody's grandma that was so affected by smell xyz that something bad happened. Big whoop. Unless it's literally chemicals that are affecting your health, or an airborne pathogen, you don't need medical attention.

And please, just because you don't have a sense of smell, doesn't mean you're immune to pathogens.

So much wrong.. must resist reference to idle section... oops too late!

Re:Paaaleeese

[antifoidulus]

It wasn't really the smell per se, it was the mixture of rotting food and harsh cleaning chemicals that caused a lot of the people to vomit. The warning labels on those things are pretty lengthy.

Re:Paaaleeese

[Chabo]

If chemicals induce vomiting, they are affecting your health... repeated vomiting can have some nasty effects (like difficulties breathing due to rib muscle injury, or major capillary damage that can affect eyesight, or aspiration of stomach contents leading to pulmonary infection).

Don't forget vocal chord rupture. James Labrie of Dream Theater had this happen after eating in Cuba and getting food poisoning. Ten years later, he was fully recovered. In the meantime, he had nowhere near the vocal range that he used to. (parodied in the James Labrie Action Figure commercial)

Re:Paaaleeese

[MyLongNickName]

Untrue. The article explicitly states that the person cleaning the fridge was not affected (effected?) due to allergies which prevent her from smelling. Allergies do not give you superhuman resistance to chlorine gas.

Re:Paaaleeese

[MyLongNickName]

I think there is a difference between "the smell of the diaper made me hurl" to "the smell caused me to go to the hospital". Maybe I am wrong, but I would tend to think some folks might have overreacted a bit to the stench. Sounds to me like one person became ill, and then the programmed herd instinct took over. Then, the cynical side of me wonders how many folks wanted a day off of work.

Re:Paaaleeese

[Red Flayer]

Perhaps you don't understand the nature of vomiting issue. "Bucking up" because it's a "bad smell" is not always possible. Good for you if you're an internet tough guy who never vomits unless he chooses to. The rest of the population sometimes simply doesn't have a choice in the matter. The vomit reflex in response to smell is NOT a voluntary response. While it sometimes can be limited via voluntary effort, this is not always the case.

It is human nature to vomit at the smell of noxious fumes (that's why they are called noxious); this is a biological trait that has evolved as a survival response to eating tainted food.

I don't know if you've ever had a bout of violent vomiting that lasted several minutes. Pulled rib muscles, capillary damage resulting in bleeding from nasal passages and the eyes, esophageal bleeding... a couple of these items require medical examination. When I was an EMT, we had a guy who was throwing up due to overeating and not chewing his food properly, and he had a heart attack, likely from the increase in blood pressure/pulse rate while vomiting. He had no idea he was having a heart attack, he thought he just had painful vomiting.

If there is an unknown risk (which is quite possible), seeking medical evaluation is important. Both for liability reasons (you KNOW the employer needs to cover their ass) and for humane reasons. What if there was a bigger issue, such as toxins? Are you medically qualified to rule that out? Do you think anyone in that office was?

And I'll give you a little hint about office morale... having several employees puking their guts out is a bad idea. Sending them directly home is callous. Making sure they are OK is the right thing to do, and medical evaluation is the right way to do it.

Re:Paaaleeese

[Volante3192]

Mocking medical conditions isn't really a good way to endear yourself.

Further, these people weren't exactly garbage men, plumbers or others who have to expect green haze during the daily grind. This is cube farm work. These people didn't expect to be drenched in the foul odor of Beelzebub's flatulence when they clocked in.

Finally, when you get a call about an office keeling over from smells, are you going to (a) figure out what happened or (b) make sure the people are all right? I'm not the most humanitarian person but I'm going to pick (b) and err on the side of caution.

The one cleaning had allergies and wasn't affected. Good. But maybe she just has a poor sense of smell through genetics? Some people can't taste broken aspirin. Others...can.

Re:The main rule

[Chabo]

My last employer was decently small (~100 people), and there were strict rules to try to prevent this problem:

If it has no name, throw it out, even if it's not yours.
If it has a name but no date, ask the person about it, and throw it out if they don't say "keep it". If they tell you they'll take care of it, don't believe them.
If it has a name and an old date, ask the person about it, and be prepared to throw it out.
Every month or so, send out an e-mail saying "Everything in the fridge gets thrown out by the end of the day.", and then do it.

My current employer is a larger company, and just has a policy of emptying all fridges at the end of every week.

Re:true story from my brothers office

[commodoresloat]

Everyone in congress simultaneously projectile vomiting? Nothing in the history of humanity would ever be funnier.

I see this every day on CSPAN; the amusement wears off fast.

Re:And the one cleaning the fridge?

[geekoid]

Sounds like 28 people made shit up to go home early and take a couple of days.

Hysteria

[John Hasler]

> It wasn't really the smell per se...

No. It was the hysteria. "Ohno! A smell! A SMELL!! A STRONG SMELL!!! Oh my god! We're all going to DIE!! Call 911!"

What would you do?

[spun]

So here you are working in an office building, when you start to smell a terrible stench of decay and harsh chemicals. You have no idea what caused this smell. You then proceed to vomit due to the smell, but you don't know that it is only because of the smell. What would you do?

You got marked troll because you demonstrated not only an inability to put yourself into someone else's shoes, but a smug sense of superiority over those people that you can't empathize with. And then you had the gracelessness to whine about getting marked troll. Paaaleeeese.

Re:true story from my brothers office

[GNU(slash)Nickname]

Or to be blown... http://www.the-joke-shop.com/showjoke.asp?joke=1891