Chlorine causes trouble at YMCA
By John Joyce
Published in News on May 8, 2015 1:46 PM
An over-chlorinated spa inside the women's locker room at the Goldsboro Family Y forced the evacuation of the entire building Thursday, Goldsboro Fire Department officials said.
One person was taken to Wayne Memorial Hospital to be evaluated.
Assistant Fire Chief Eric Lancaster said the fire department was called out at 5:40 p.m. by Associate Executive Director Kriquette Davis.
"She called our dispatch and asked if we could come out to do some air monitoring," Lancaster said.
A fire engine was dispatched and when it arrived on scene, firefighters discovered a self-regulating chlorine injector in the 1,300-gallon spa was pumping too much of the chemical.
"It automatically injects the chlorine as needed. At some point in time, it malfunctioned," he said.
Lancaster said Ms. Davis and a pool maintenance person initially went into the spa to check things out.
"He shut off the automatic system, shut the pump off and exited the locker room. They then closed off the area."
When Lancaster and a ladder truck arrived on scene shortly after the first fire engine, air quality readings were taken throughout the building. Nothing out of the ordinary was detected. Due to the large number of people still in the building however, Lancaster decided to err on the side of caution.
"The National Day of Prayer was going on at the time," he said. "We weren't picking up any readings, there was no danger, but we just wanted to be on the safe side," he said.
The evacuation was extended to the rest of the building.
Outside the building, the annual prayer service continued undeterred by the goings on inside.
Inside, Lancaster was on the phone with the Wayne County Office of Emergency Services and, eventually, the state Hazardous Materials Regional Response Team in Fayetteville.
"Once we got the name of the particular chemical they were using, their pool person recommended sodium thiosulfate to counteract the problem," he said.
At that point Lancaster decided to call in a hazmat team just to be safe and called Mel Powers at OES. It was Powers who referred Lancaster to Fayetteville.
"They told me this was a common problem and said they really didn't feel the need to respond. They advised us to ventilate the area, have on a splash-proof suit so it doesn't touch the firefighter's skin, and wear our (Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus) SCBAs," Lancaster said.
The next step was to drain the pool and keep the area ventilated, he said. Before draining the pool, however, Lancaster wanted to make sure the chlorine-saturated water was safe to put into the city's sewer system. He made one more call.
"I called Karen Brashear with the water and sewer department," he said.
Mrs. Brashear told Lancaster it would not be harmful and to go ahead and drain the spa.
Once the spa was drained and another round of air quality tests failed to produce any readings indicating a presence of dangerous fumes, the fire department began to allow patrons and employees back into the building to fetch their keys and personal items.
Ms. Davis complained of irritation and was taken to Wayne Memorial Hospital to be checked out. She was treated and released and is back at work today. Both the building and spa, like Ms. Davis, are fully operational.
"I am fine. They just wanted to be precautionary," she said today.
There was still a lot left to do last night after the prayer service concluded and the fire department left, she said. She was still busy this morning cleaning up.
"I'm just tired," she said.