Chemical Mishap at St. George Apartment Complex Sends 2 to the Hospital

A chemical mishap at an apartment complex in St. George resulted in two people being sent to the hospital and prompted the evacuation of two nearby buildings. 

The incident occurred Tuesday morning at Cedar Flats Apartments when staff were performing maintenance on the pool.  

Brad Esplin, a St. George Fire Deputy Chief, said a mixture of chemicals resulted in toxic chlorine gas filling the air. 

Esplin said, “We were dispatched around 9 o’clock to reports of a hazmat incident, and when we arrived on the scene, there were two people who were exposed to chlorine gas. Acid and chlorine were mixed accidentally in the pool house near the pump room which resulted in a very toxic chlorine gas.” 

The two workers who inhaled the gas were transported to St. George Regional Hospital via Gold Cross ambulance. Their current condition is unknown.  

Fire crews took the barrel containing the chemical mixture and placed it in the pool to dilute and neutralize the toxic gas, something Esplin said was simple to do for the fire workers. 

Esplin said, “What’s nice about being near a swimming pool, which is a large, contained body of water, is we can put it into the swimming pool which will dilute and contain it. We then talked to the maintenance crew, and they balanced the pool chemicals after we added the mixture into it.” 

The deputy fire chief said this incident could happen to anyone who doesn’t take thorough care to separate their cleaning chemicals. 

Esplin said, “The biggest thing you can do is obviously, clearly mark your containers based on what liquid is currently in them, and also what was in them. Because even if the container is empty and it’s for instance, the chlorine container, there’s still some residual chlorine inside that container.” 

Any residual chemicals could potentially interact with any new chemicals added to the container. Please take care when dealing with any sort of chemical mixture and do your research beforehand so that you can come out of the process safe and sound.