Chemical spill in Illinois sends 37 people to the hospital

[PsychoFox67]

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/25/us/chemical-spill-illinois/index.html

couldn't fit the whole title

https://twitter.com/NBCSky5/status/1121364890147487744

look at this horror movie shit

[LoneWolf_Recon]

Transport company and/or ammonia supplier better cough up to cover the medical costs of those affected.

[QwertyTSecond]

That second image is a bit misleading. I thought for a minute that was the scale of the leak, which from that small container would be a bit improbable. And the article says anhydrous ammonia is colourless, so that's just early morning mist, right?

[Azza]

When you get these types of leaks it creates a low heavier than air cloud like mist for a relatively short period

[TheTalon]

Ammonia is no joke. There's a dash cam video of a State Trooper arriving on an accident scene where a truck carrying ammonia over turned and was leaking it. Unbeknownst to the Trooper he ran straight in to help the driver who was laying in the middle of the road. Almost immediately the Trooper began coughing, and not seconds later he fell over, unconscious, the mic still picking up his agonal breathing as he died.

It only takes seconds

[ChrisR7]

Not to lessen the impact, but supposedly that video was a training video made to demonstrate the fast-acting effects of the gas on people who just run in and try to help people already downed by it not knowing how quickly it gets to people.

It still portrays a good example of why one shouldn't just rush into a cloud of ammonia gas to try and save someone, though.

[Sableye]

any oxygen displacing gas is deadly like that, plus people running to help almost always leads to these sorts of chain deaths. The CSB has a lot of cases where one person asphyxiated, then another ran to help, got asphyxiated, then another ran to help and also got asphyxiated

[Headhumpy]

Anhydrous ammonia rapidly mixes with water vapour in the air to form a mist.

[Ms. Gyroscope]

Oh my god it looks like Trioxin 5!

[Download]

Water is colourless yet you can still see steam.

The US kind of bizarre in that some very dangerous chemicals are allowed to be transported with minimal safety requirement. Anhydrous ammonia is one of them.