Thursday, July 01, 1999
Cyanide cloud averted in Miami U. lab spill
The Cincinnati Enquirer
OXFORD — Miami University officials say quick action — and perhaps some luck — averted a potentially deadly situation in a chemical spill on campus Tuesday.
Officials on Wednesday revealed details of the spill that forced evacuation of Hughes Hall, which houses the chemistry laboratory.
When a professor reached for a box on a shelf, a bottle fell through the box's corroded bottom. The bottle contained 250 milliliters of nitric acid, a colorless, highly corrosive poisonous liquid used to treat metals and to make explosives, weed-killers and plastics. The liquid reacted with the linoleum on the floor and created strong fumes.
Another glass bottle also fell — and it contained potassium cyanide. If that bottle had cracked and the two chemicals interacted, “there would have been a cloud of cyanide gas,” said Oxford Fire Chief Leonard Endress. Most cyanides are deadly poi sons that cause respiratory failure.
Hazardous-materials specialists from Middletown and Hamilton found the potassium cyanide had not leaked. Crews decontaminated the site and the hall reopened about five hours after the spill was reported.
Two students and a professor, who were in the room at the time of the spill, exhibited no ill effects, officials said.
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