11 people went to the hospital Thursday morning after a hazmat incident at Port Panama City’s East Terminal.
Crews had completed the unloading of bagged cement from the “Lowlands Luck” around 9 a.m. on Thursday and were beginning to clean up the ship.
But the cleaning chemical they were using mixed with the cement residue, forming muriatic acid.
“The muriatic acid reacted with the byproduct of what they had taken out of the hold, created a gas, an off gas of muriatic acid. And due to the weather conditions this morning, with a dense fog, that vapor did not expand upwards like it normally does. And it actually fell down and exposed personnel that were on the ship and on the ground,” Panama City Fire Chief David Collier said.
Fire crews arrived on scene and found 11 people exposed to the hazardous chemical, all experiencing difficulty breathing and chest pains.
Paramedics immediately took one crew member to the hospital in critical condition. The other 10 were transported for evaluation.
Bay County Emergency Services Hazmat team responded to make sure the hold was safe, and there was no further threat.
Port Director Alex King says this incident was unusual.
“It is something that is a fairly normal practice to clean ship holds in between the types of cargo to make sure there’s no contamination. And unfortunately, what happened this morning with the weather, a fairly normal activity turned into a severe accident,” Port Panama City Port Director Alex King said.
King says this is the first time something like this has happened at the Port. They’ll use this as an opportunity to train staff on safety protocol for the future.
“We have regular training intervals throughout the year with our port staff. We train directly with the city of Panama City on fire and also with response. And then the stevedores, they have their safety and hazmat protocols as well to train their employees,” King said.
Bay County Hazmat team and Search and Rescue team performed a thorough check of the area and say the scene is not a threat to the public.
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Source: Mypanhandle
