Fire departments from five cities responded to the dispatch of a chemical spill in Gorham campus’s Russell Hall this past Wednesday just before 11 a.m. Nobody was injured and and 30-35 people were safely evacuated from the building. The leak caused by a mechanical malfunction was safely cleaned up and disposed of.
Ambulances and fire trucks from Gorham, Westbrook, Windham, Standish and Scarborough were on the scene to clean-up an ammonia leak that occurred after Matt Meeds, technical director of theatre, changed a one gallon cylinder of ammonia used in blueprint production. Meeds, though woozy, was checked on the scene and declared free of injury.
The cylinder, attached to a blueprint copier, feeds ammonia into the machine to aid it in the copying process. Meeds who has worked for five years in his position, said that once he discovered the leak, he threw sawdust on it to absorb the ammonia. He grabbed a mop, returned and found it still leaking. At that point he alerted the building’s secretary and went around to classrooms, informing Russell Hall occupants to evacuate the building.
“I threw open as many doors and windows as I could,” Meeds said of his efforts to thin the fumes. “It could’ve been a malfunction in the machine. It is an old machine, over ten years.” Meeds said he wasn’t sure how the leak sprung but that he’d gone through the same procedure for switching the tank over as he has done for the past five years.
Al Kirk associate coordinator for Occupational Safety and Health said that ammonia in its pure form is dangerous because it can severely burn the lungs if ingested into the system. However, “it’s one of those things like tylenol, you’d have to take the whole bottle,” he said. Kirk is currently investigating the origins of the leak and said the machine will no longer will be used.
Deputy Fire Chief of Scarborough, Glen Deering, said that by the time he and his crew arrived on the scene the ammonia had completely leaked from the jug. The fire fighters suited up in protective gear that many might characterize as “space suits” and entered the building to contain the chemical. They double-bagged the ammonia to insure it wouldn’t further contaminate the scene. It was placed into a five gallon barrel, wrapped in plastic, inserted into a 50 gallon drum and then transported to Massachusetts.
“This is sort of inconvenient but not terribly troubling” said Judy O’Malley, staff associate of media relations. Her sentiments were echoed by those who had been in the building. “All my stuff is stuck in there,” said Karen Cabot a second year theater major. The two classes being conducted were forced onto the lawn but many left their belongings (keys, wallets, etc) in the building thinking they’d be allowed to re-enter soon.
Though Wil Kilroy, associate professor of theater, kept his keys, he still missed a meeting because the faculty parking lot was part of the secured area and nobody was allowed to exit or enter. A group of theater majors giddily re-enacted the evacuation and complained of Kilroy’s inability to post the casting list for the upcoming show “Company. Chemical hazards are not frequent occurrences said one Scarborough firefighter.”Those calls are few and far between.”
Executive Editor Christy McKinnon can be contacted at [email protected]