Kanawha County emergency officials say they are concerned that DuPont didn’t give them enough information to properly respond to Saturday’s phosgene accident that resulted in the death of plant worker Carl “Dan” Fish of Gallagher, W.Va.
Metro 911 got the first call at about 1:59 p.m. Saturday. DuPont at first said only that it needed an ambulance for a medical call.
Click here to listen to that call.
Metro dispatchers called back several times, trying to find out more. They got busy signals and no answer — apparently at least in part because DuPont’s Belle plant, unlike other area chemical facilities, does not have a dedicated phone line to Metro 911.
It was about 20 minutes later that DuPont officials provided Metro 911 with the name of the chemical involved in the incident, and that happened only after a Metro 911 supervisor — concerned about what ambulance crews might be rolling into — called back and pressed DuPont for more details. Here is the audio of that call.
Kanawha County Commission President Kent Carper said the incident wasn’t as bad as what happened at Bayer CropScience in August 2008, when Bayer officials repeatedly refused to say what was going on during explosion and fire. But Carper said Saturday’s incident could have been handled better by DuPont:
It wasn’t about cooperation. It was about information. It’s not just about the amount of time. It’s about the quality of information.
Metro 911 Director Carolyn Charnock and her staff have been working hard to improve how these events are handled since the Bayer mess. Their job isn’t made any easier when companies don’t provide even basic information right up front. But, Metro 911 officials are still asking companies to tell them if leaks will affect the public, rather than asking more specific questions that would allow emergency officials to decide the answer to that question for themselves.
Subscribe to Sustained Outrage
Truly frightening how clumsily and ineptly this is handled by the various people at the DuPont Belle plant! Who is in charge?
And even more scary, what if there had been a sudden leak and a cloud of phosgene gas wafting above the plant headed for nearby homes and businesses and unsuspecting people by the hundreds, if not thousands?
….funfundvierzig..
[...] Blogs @ The Charleston Gazette – » DuPont calls: ‘Can you give me some more information?’ blogs.wvgazette.com – view page – cached Kanawha County emergency officials say they are concerned that DuPont didn’t give them enough information to properly respond to Saturday’s phosgene accident that resulted in the death of plant worker Carl “Dan” Fish of Gallagher, W.Va. [...]
[...] to identify the chemical exposure to Metro 911 services after the initial call for an ambulance: DuPont calls: ‘Can you give me some more information?’ (The Charleston [...]
It seems to me that it takes a serious injury or death to get things done @ DuPont anymore. The old DuPont way of thinking about safety would have never let that happen. Believe me heads will roll all the way up the chain of command. What a horrible death !
As horrible as this is, to blame DuPont for not having more information at the first phone call seems a bit harsh. If man is sprayed in the face after a pipe bursts, I’d think you’d reach for the phone to call 911 before you started looking for the name of the chemical in the pipe. It’s not as if they tried to hide the information. When the lady knew the answer and was asked for it, she gave it… As for why this happened in the first place, well, that’s another matter entirely.