"As many as nine postal workers were transported to Oconee Memorial Hospital today after they became sick at work. Authorities don't know if their illnesses are connected to a leaking package that was removed earlier in the day by a hazardous materials team and turned over to the FBI."
FOX Carolina TV
2 comments:
Once again the Greenville P&DC does NOT follow the SOP for hazardous materials. When Anthrax was being mailed after 9/11, the Greenville SC Offices didn't follow SOP on how to handle containers that could possibly have come in contact with the substance. White powers were sometimes found in the mail or in equipment and the supervisors did nothing.
When Ricin was found in the mail stream at the Greenville Airport Mail Facility, ( which is part of the Greenville P&DC ) it was put on a supervisor's desk and left there of over 8 hours before being picked up by an inspector. The SOP is to quarantine the area and call DHEC immediately. The employees were not evacuated, the section it was found in was not quarantined, employees were not tested, and any mail pieces that came in contact with the Ricin went on to people's homes. The funny thing here, the supervisors involved with the cover-up got a bonus.
After this incident, management and the employees were mandatoried to take a class on Hazardous Materials in the Mail. Management has since shown that they didn't pay attention.
October 28th, a package popped when being sorted. It sounded like caps going off. Smoke came out of the package and then a foul smell. The employees that were exposed to it were sent downstairs to work with the unexposed employees. I guess the supervisors wanted to cross expose everybody. At least someone turned off the air handler. Still, DEHC wasn't called. Instead the supervisors called their bosses in Columbia and they said keep working the mail. Fortunately, when the inspectors arrived over 2 hours later, it was determined that it was a stink bomb that was in the package. Two test tubes in it popped and that is what caused the smoke and smell. Still, with the fact that Ricin had already been though Greenville before, it could just as easily been a Ricin Gas Bomb.
Now we have Managements latest, the poisoning of the Seneca P.O.. Once again, a supervisor of the Greenville Airport Mail Facility messed up. It seems that an employee found a package that was leaking and went and reported it to the supervisor, just like the training said to do. The Supervisor did what the training said NOT to do, he wrapped it up and sent it on its way. The training says that package must be stopped in the mail flow, the sender must be contacted and they will come pick it up. That didn't happen because of the supervisor being stupid. He wrapped it in plastic wrap and sent it on to Seneca. On the way it mixed with and leaked on other pieces of mail. Those pieces and the package arrived at Seneca. The mail pieces that were cross contaminated were delivered and some of them went to a Doctor's Office. The rest I guess went to people's homes. The package continued to leak and then got the employees of the Seneca office sick.
The good thing here is that the supervisor that is responsible for all this admitted it openly. He should get a nice fat bonus for that.
Here in chicago there is a memo praising these supervisors and then going on to say had the window crew asked the haz mat questions all of this could have been avoided. Does anyone out there know the origin of this package? I hope it was international and had nothing to do with window services. What ego maniacs. Someone please fill in the blanks.
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