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October 22, 2012

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Swimmers exposed to deadly gas at leisure centre

Two companies have been ordered to pay £120,000 in fines and costs between them after nine people were hospitalised when they were exposed to chlorine gas at a swimming pool in Staffordshire.

The incident took place at the Nuffield Health Fitness and Wellbeing Centre in Cannock on 7 March 2009. Honeywell Control Systems Ltd was contracted to provide ongoing maintenance of the pool plant, and on the day of the incident one of its engineers was attempting to top up the day tank, which releases a disinfectant into the pool.

The engineer was meant to add a mixture of sodium bisulphate and water to the tank, which contained a chlorine alkali. But he mistakenly poured in a container of sodium bisulphate acid, which caused a reaction and released chlorine gas into the pool’s plant room.

The gas leaked into the swimming pool where 20 members of the public were exposed to the fumes. Staff at the centre quickly evacuated the building and nine people, including four children, were taken to hospital for treatment. All of them made a full recovery.

The incident was investigated by Cannock Chase Council, which found the centre had failed to put adequate measures in place to separate containers of alkali and acid. Also the risk assessment in place was inadequate and out of date.

The council issued the centre two Improvement Notice, which required a fresh risk assessment to be conducted and ordered the creation of a safe system for storing and handling chemicals.

The investigation also identified that Honeywell Control Systems had failed to ensure the engineer was competent to do the work. He had been on a training course for handling chemicals, but he was six months overdue for attending a refresher course. It had also failed to ensure a suitable risk assessment was in place for the work.

Cannock Chase Council environmental health officer Natalie Barrow said: “The risk assessments provided by both defendants were not suitable – they were insufficient and outdated. Nuffield’s fundamental error was not considering the enhanced harmful effects of incompatible chemicals combined.

“It was extremely disappointing to find that the health club not only had inadequate and out-of-date risk assessments at the time of the chemical-mix incident but also the same risk assessments had not been reviewed some 11 months after the chlorine-gas release.

Nuffield Health Wellbeing Ltd and Honeywell Control Systems appeared at Staffordshire Magistrates’ Court on 17 October. Both companies pleaded guilty to breaching s2(1) and s3(1) of the HSWA 1974 and reg.5(1) of the MHSWR 1999. They were both fined £45,000 and each was ordered to pay £14,755 in costs.

In mitigation, Honeywell said it cooperated with the investigation and has subsequently retrained its staff and carried out a new risk assessment at the site.

Nuffield Health Wellbeing said it has spent a large amount of money to refurbish the pool plant room and similar rooms at other centres it owns. It also confirmed that it complied with the enforcement notices.

After the hearing, EHO Barrow said: “In any client and contractor relationship both parties have duties and responsibilities under health and safety law to protect each other, their workforce and anyone else. As this case has highlighted, these responsibilities were not properly managed by either defendant, which led to an event that injured children.”

Approaches to managing the risks associated Musculoskeletal disorders

In this episode of the Safety & Health Podcast, we hear from Matt Birtles, Principal Ergonomics Consultant at HSE’s Science and Research Centre, about the different approaches to managing the risks associated with Musculoskeletal disorders.

Matt, an ergonomics and human factors expert, shares his thoughts on why MSDs are important, the various prevalent rates across the UK, what you can do within your own organisation and the Risk Management process surrounding MSD’s.

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Andy
Andy
11 years ago

It reacts with chlorine in water to form salt (sodium chloride) and sulphuric acid. It is used to lower the PH of the water after it has been chlorinated.

Bob
Bob
11 years ago

Sodium Busulphate crystals when mixed with water create Sulphuric Acid.

Sulphuric acid and chlorinated water react, changing the PH from Alkaline to Acid giving rise to Chlorine gas.

So presumably the concentration of chlorine being high in a pool scenario gave rise to a significant amount of gas.

Kenpatrick
Kenpatrick
11 years ago

But are you correct Natlalie” sodium hypochlorite(acid)”? It is interesting how we get the terms and our understanding mixed up with reference to acid and alkali. I have even seen reference to caustic acid! It would be helpful for SHP to correct the story and tell us what was added.

Nataliebarrow
Nataliebarrow
11 years ago

There is indeed a typo in the story and Colin Jenkinson is correct, it should read:

The engineer was meant to add a mixture of sodium bisulphate and water to the tank, which contained a chlorine alkali. But he mistakenly poured in a container of sodium hypochlorite (acid), which caused a reaction and released chlorine gas into the pool’s plant room.

Office
Office
11 years ago

There must be a typo in this story, as it states

“The engineer was meant to add a mixture of sodium bisulphate and water to the tank, which contained a chlorine alkali. But he mistakenly poured in a container of sodium bisulphate acid, which caused a reaction and released chlorine gas into the pool’s plant room.”

Surely somewhere one of the tanks contained Sodium Hypochlorite which is the alkaline in the plant room

Whitesmar
Whitesmar
11 years ago

Could anyone enlighten me as to the nature of “sodium busulphate acid”?

“Sodium bisulphate”, NaHSO4, is nowadays more properly known as “sodium hydrogen sulfate”. Sure, there is an acidic hydrogen in the molecule but it would not normally dissociate from the main anion. In fact, a solution of sodium hydrogen sulfate will usually give an alkaline response.

The hydrogen atom CAN be replaced by a metal – an acid reaction – but only under very alkaline conditions – eg with NaOH.