WSBTV: ATLANTA — Investigators from at least three different local and federal agencies are currently inside a Hall County chicken processing plant trying to figure out what triggered a liquid nitrogen line to burst, killing 6 people and injuring a dozen others.
It happened around 10:30 a.m. at the Foundation Food’s chicken processing facility in Gainesville.
On top of the six workers that were killed, three more remain in critical condition and several more, including firefighters, were injured after breathing in the liquid nitrogen fumes.Content Continues Below
Jameel Fareed told Channel 2′s Tony Thomas that he was working in the area where the liquid nitrogen began pouring into the air. He made it.
“First we just thought there was something wrong with the freezer, then they started saying get out,” Fareed said. “I just saw the fog and when I couldn’t see down the steps, I turned around. But I didn’t feel anything.” more
Prayers for their families 🙏🏻🙏🏻
“Jameel Fareed”
I think I solved your crime.
We had a coolant leak in our fridge two years ago. It smelled like acetone. I had to throw everything out, and afterward, I began to vomit uncontrollably. For hours. I thought I was dying between coughing jags and vomiting.
…may the Lord send His Comfortor to the familes of those who lost their lives in this accident and heal those in need that they may recover, and may He have called those lost to Him before today that those they leave behind may have the blessed assurance that they are present with the Lord and they will see each other again.
And I ask it in the merciful name of Jesus, amen.
…I’ve worked in a food plant for a quarter century, around 20 years of which have included Liquid Nitrogen spiral freezers, including the current one that would make a nice-sized two story townhouse for someone if it wasn’t full of a stainless steel belt, fans, and a couple of hundred degrees below zero in there.
One thing you learn about liquid nitrogen is that it’s prestty insidious. See, it doesn’t smell, it doesn’t taste, it’s as transparent as air, and it’s not particuarly cold once it’s expanded the 300 or so times its volume as it vaporizes, so out around the freezer if the stack is blocked, it can create a completely undetectable by humans envelope of anarobic atmosphere that isn’t poisonous, but certainly does NOT support life because all the oxygen has been driven out. People tend not to respect that, as I remember a guy in the early days of our freezer experience standing under the visible to invisible waterfall of the heavier-than-air heating gas coming down out of the exit of the freezer on a very hot day and he chose to stand underneath it to get cool, and almost cooled off permanantly because it didn’t dawn on him that his breathing was no longer oxygenating his body.
It doesn’t feel any different in y0ur lungs, because what you breathe every day is mostly nitrogen anyway, but that 21% percent oxygen is SUPER important. And the wicked thing about anoxia is it fogs your brain first, so you stop understanding and being able to make decisions pretty early in the process, so even if you’re told to leave the area you may not understand, or even comprehend what you are being told, or be able to walk away even if you wanted to because you’re so tired, time for a little nap, wonder why those people over there are shouting at me, oh well this floor feels pretty good…
…yeah, like that. And anyone fool enough to rescue you is likely to be overcome quickly as well if they don’t have any breathing support, so you end up with rescuers needing recued as well. This stuff is no joke, its leathal as hell, even MORE so since it isn’t wicked to our senses so we tend to discount it until its too late.
…our system has an oxygen meter on it and on alarm, folks are supposed to leave, like, NOW. Sometimes things are done to ventilate the room like opening the large doors enclosing the frozen product area, but management tends to resist this as it compromises the sterility of an area where food for further processing – which is what frozen food mostly IS – is kept, and requires re-sanitation. But as long as the alarm sounds, anyone in the room HAS to have breathing support and anyone NOT in the room has to stay the hell out until the alarm subsides.
Happily, nitrogen DOES dissipate fairly quickly and the room is hardly airtight, so it doesnt take super long even if you simply turn OFF the nitrogen supply at the tank, and other than ruined food it’s pretty quick to restart as one of the biggest issues is ice dams in the ventilation system inside the box that melt off kinda fast once you stop dumping nitrogen on them.
That said, the lines go through some parts of the plant that DON’T have alarms, and since none of them are stamped with JESUS as the manufactuerer, you COULD have a localized leak among less-trained or wary employees, not to mention that forklift drivers tend to be somewhat casual about hitting things, and may not report it even if they DO because they don’t want to lose their jobs, so a line may get knocked apart and left by someone late for break that ends up killing dozens. Much of the work is very labor intensive, so you tend to have large groups coagulated together in some areas, usually with a fan blowing on them, with the only nod to COVID being some plastic sheets between them.
Perfect setup for a chemical mass-casualty incident such as this.
Bear in mind to that food plants, and I talk to people in OTHER food plants so it not just me, tend to be staffed mostly with young, low-skilled, and very international employees, weighted rather heavily towards women, so sometimes it’s difficult to communicate even the most basic emergeny information to people with only a rudimentary understanding of English to begin with, and may not be literate even in their own language. I’m an in-plant first responder so I have to be cognizant of this even in the areas I don’t typically work in, but so far there’s been no need for rescues, just some confusion and hesitation but it really doesn’t happen that often anyway.
Which is the OTHER thing that makes it dangerous.
…See, familiarity breeds contempt. if you go days and weeks and months and years without an incident, those who are here for awhile and in Management tend to forget about the hazards and also forget that the work force turns over a lot and maybe not all the new people even KNOW there’s a hazard. Some of these folks come from countries where automation is what the AK47 that someone’s always pointing at them has, so you can’t really be surprised that they don’t get modern industrial features and hazards. You can’t count on word of mouth between them either, since they are so very diverse that even those from adjacent African countries may not communicate, partly for dialect reasons and partly because of religious and ethnic hatreds that predate slavery by a very wide margin, so they tend to not be particuarly helpful to each other even when on the surface it may seem they SHOULD be.
So I’m not surprised that this plant had an incident that got so out of hand that it resulted in loss of life.
…Frankly, I’m only surprised there aren’t MORE of them…
Jewel JANUARY 29, 2021 AT 12:15 PM
“We had a coolant leak in our fridge two years ago. It smelled like acetone. I had to throw everything out, and afterward, I began to vomit uncontrollably. For hours. I thought I was dying between coughing jags and vomiting.”
…that was probably an ammonia-based freezer. Those are wicked too, but at least the smell warns you off.
Although it can fill a room very quickly and overwhelm you too because it’s under pressure and expanive (which any refrigerant HAS to be to work), so that’s probably what happend to you, thank God it didn’t kill you because it easily COULD have…
“Officials with that hospital said it was fortunate that their COVID-19 patient numbers have recently fallen.”
Nobody gives a shit about your goddam covid numbers when there is a real emergency, sparky.
Thirdtwin
JANUARY 29, 2021 AT 12:37 PM
‘“Officials with that hospital said it was fortunate that their COVID-19 patient numbers have recently fallen.”
Nobody gives a shit about your goddam covid numbers when there is a real emergency, sparky.’
…I’m very glad this crap was well after my time. I think if I had my squad diverted from a hospital over this crap, I probably would have punched someone right in the smuggest part of their mask and ended up fully in jail and mistaken for a cop by my newfound cell mates because of the uniform…
Imagine something that boils at −300°F+
and breathing it in.
The liquid Nitrogen turns the very vapor/moisture in your breath, eyes, throat & lungs instantly into ice.
Google for Videos of Smashing things frozen in pure Liquid nitrogen
Is there a list of those unfortunate to have died?
But it sure is fun to hit the stuff frozen in liquid N and watch it shatter…
Yes, I do send my prayers to their families, but couldn’t resist
Three agencies?
Call a fikken plumber … or an AC man.
Or the Roberts Oxygen guy.
WTF is wrong with people?
Must be some kind of cover-up in process.
izlamo delenda est …
Cold stuff. Will turn lungs into icy potato chips.
Superheated steam has very similar, deadly, properties.
Can’t see it until you walk into it and no smell.
Read a story once about an inexperienced Siberian tour guide who put a bottle of vodka into the snow while entertaining tourists around a huge bonfire as it was 50 below zero F. To show off he pulled the vodka out and took a couple of big gulps. End of tour guide.
SNS
I knew you would be the guy to know about this stuff when I read the headline.
The other thing about foreign workers is places where they come from life is really cheap, and it’s getting cheaper here as well it seems.
Their idea of safety is -you should have been watching what you were doing. I found this out on the job site when some guy in a skid steer almost ran me over and my guy several times. When I gave him the what for he just pointed at me and then pointed at his eyes, as in not my problem. Backing up in a piece of heavy equipment without turning around to see who’s behind him was just okay with him.
I worked in petrochemical plants for thirty-five years. I worked closely with some of the most dangerous chemicals there are like ethyl mercaptan, methyl mercaptan, vinyl acetate, chlorine, sulfuric acid, butene, propane, hexene, ethylene, organic peroxides, carbon disulfide, hydrogen sulfide and many others. The thing that scared me the most was nitrogen. It’s the silent killer. No warning! You feel fine, then your dead.
Believe the Hemlock society has a version using this. This one was far worse because the leak started out liquid and was able to spread far greater amounts as in went into vapor and then unseeable gas. Have seen the ultimate stupidity of a worker breaking a pipe with fork truck on purpose to expose himself to Isocyanides. Did it to collect long/full disabilty for the permanent lung damage that gives something like a permanent ongoing asthma attack.
SNS covered it well and ,b>NEVER underestimate the stupidity of your fellow human beings/workers.
No edit…
NEVER