Copyright 2006 Providence Publications, LLC
By GREGORY SMITH
The Providence Journal (Rhode Island)
Investigators will examine the cyanide poisoning of eight Providence firefighters at fires in March.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Two physicians from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, a federal research agency, are in the city for a four-day study of cyanide poisoning of firefighters.
Eight Providence firefighters were found to have above-normal concentrations of cyanide in their blood after several recent fires — one suffered a heart attack at a fire.
And two were given a three-drug regimen as an antidote to poisoning.
Yesterday, the physicians said they have answered one of the big questions they had coming in: were the blood tests that showed above-normal cyanide done correctly at the Rhode Island Hospital laboratory?
“I personally walked away feeling confident about the accuracy of their data,” said Dr. Thomas R. Hales, a senior epidemiologist for the institute. “They were doing it [laboratory tests] like the textbook says.”
Besides checking the hospital processes and procedures yesterday, the two-man team has been interviewing 27 firefighters who were tested for cyanide poisoning, obtaining their family and personal medical histories and arranging to obtain the records of their tests and treatment.
The blood of all but one of the 27 firefighters was tested at Rhode Island Hospital, according to Deputy Assistant Fire Chief J. Curtis Varone, leader of a local cyanide task force composed of representatives of the Fire Department and the firefighters labor union. One was tested at Our Lady of Fatima Hospital, North Providence.
The physicians also walked through the sites of the three fires: El Fogon restaurant, 1197 Broad St., and two dwellings, at 125 Knight St. and 70 Ralph St. The first two fires occurred on March 23 and the third, early the next morning.
It was not immediately clear what steps might be taken as a result of the study since the institute is not a regulatory agency.
Hales, who is also a uniformed captain in the U.S. Public Health Service, said he and his colleague, Dr. John Halpin of the University of Illinois at Chicago, who is a resident training with the institute, will present their findings and recommendations to the cyanide task force.
One of the major issues to be settled is whether firefighters must permanently change their tactics at fires in order to prevent being poisoned.
“We still can’t connect all the dots” regarding the seriousness of the cyanide threat, Varone said. “We have a lot of dots.”
The danger to firefighters is presented by the creation of hydrogen cyanide gas when certain combustibles burn. Providence firefighters suspect that inhalation of the gas may have triggered a heart attack suffered by Firefighter Kenneth E. Baker, 50, who was present at the Knight Street fire and then collapsed at the Ralph Street fire.
Baker is continuing a slow recovery from his heart attack and has been transferred to a rehabilitation center for brain-injured people in Easton, Mass. He does not remember the two fires, according to Firefighter Paul A. Doughty, president of the labor union.
Hales and Halpin interviewed Baker and members of his family at the center.