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U.S. Workers Exposed to Sarin Are Unharmed, Army Says
The two workers exposed to trace amounts of sarin last week at the Anniston, Ala., chemical weapons incinerator were unharmed by the toxic nerve agent, U.S. Army officials said Tuesday (see GSN, Feb. 12). The workers were exposed to the nerve agent during an operation last week to remove crystallized sarin from the incinerator, said project manager Bob Love. The two workers got sarin on their gloved hands while wearing protective gear, and instead of immediately decontaminating their hands, continued to work and spread the sarin over their suits, he said. While both workers underwent a decontamination shower afterward while wearing their suits, with one worker showering three times, when they left the shower the air around their suits measured at 165 and 185 times the level of sarin needed to set off alarms, according to the Birmingham News. Additional workers in protective gear then cut the workers out of their suits, officials said. The two workers were taken to a clinic, where one of them registered sarin at a level about twice that needed to set off an alarm, but less than that listed as hazardous under federal standards, the News reported. The second worker only showed trace levels of sarin on his body. Both workers were given blood tests that did not find dangerous levels of sarin, the Army said (Katherine Bouma, Birmingham News, Feb. 11).
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