TIFFIN - Two people were killed yesterday when a truck carrying
low-level radioactive hospital waste collided with another truck
at a rural intersection northwest of this city.
Firefighters arrived just after 7:35 a.m. to find the
two vehicles fully engulfed in flames, said Dan Stahl,
a Seneca County volunteer firefighter.
"You could tell it was a major crash by the condition
of the two cars,'' Mr. Stahl said. "It was a really bad scene.''
John Pope, 43, of Waterville was westbound on
County Road 35 when he failed to yield for a southbound
truck on State Rt. 635, the Ohio Highway Patrol said.
The trucks collided and then struck a tree on the side
of the road before bursting into flames.
Emergency crews work to free the body of one of the victims
of a fiery crash on State Rt. 635 near Bascom.
(Toledo Blade photo by Lori King)
Mr. Pope, an employee of the Holland-based Syncor International Corp.,
was killed in the crash.
The Howell, Mich., man who was driving a delivery truck carrying
cookies and crackers was identified as Karl Pervinkler, 36.
It is not known whether the men died from the crash or the fire.
Firefighters were trying to extinguish the blaze when they noticed
metal canisters with the warning "Radiation - Biohazard,'' said
Mr. Stahl, who is the public safety administrator for Seneca County.
"We immediately got our radiation detection equipment and started
checking the scene,'' Mr. Stahl said. " You could see the containers
lying right on the ground. One broke open.''
After a syringe on the ground tested positive for radioactivity,
workers blocked roads while they waited for officials from the
Ohio Department of Health and the state Environmental Protection
Agency to arrive.
"We isolated everything that was in a zone out to where we thought
it was safe,'' said Gene Kinn, a volunteer firefighter for nearby
Bascom. "We were all concerned about what we were dealing with.''
Mr. Pope, a Syncor employee for nine years, was in between hospital
stops at the time of the accident. Syncor operates 130 nuclear pharmacies,
delivering radioactive pharmaceuticals to hospitals,
said manager Stacy Petot.
About 15 metal canisters containing small amounts of radioactive
pharmaceuticals - biohazardous waste, such as syringes used to
inject radioactive dyes - tumbled out of the Syncor truck.
"Everything that was in that container was low-level,''
said Lynne Barst, an EPA spokeswoman. "It was not of a great concern.''
http://nucnews.net/nucnews/1999nn/9912nn/991231nn.htm
============================================================
|
|