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

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: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: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

[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.