By Aaron Hale and Eric Staats
The Naples Daily News
NORTH NAPLES, Fla. — Chemical fumes sent seven employees of a North Naples manufacturing company to the hospital Monday morning.
The Moog Components Group employees were sickened after a worker poured hydrochloric acid into a drum that was thought to be empty but contained sulfuric acid, according to a Florida Division of Emergency Management report.
The report said the company cleans computer parts, but inspection reports from the state Department of Environmental Protection said the company manufactures electrical parts and does electroplating.
Inspections in January and June found various violations of state law, which DEP spokeswoman Rhonda Haag characterized as minor. She said they had been corrected and were unrelated to Monday’s incident.
Ten employees of the company at the Rail Head industrial park near Old 41 Road complained of light-headedness, headaches or dizziness, North Naples Fire Chief Orly Stolts said.
As a precaution, Collier Emergency Medical Services transported three workers to NCH Downtown Naples Hospital and four others to Physicians Regional Medical Center on Pine Ridge Road, Stolts said.
North Naples firefighters evacuated almost 70 people from the Moog building and an adjacent building and closed Rail Head Boulevard while a hazmat crew investigated the building for dangerous chemicals.
The hazmat crew, dressed in yellow protective suits, brought out a barrel of a blue liquid Moog Components Group employees identified as the source of strong fumes.
Hazmat crews subsequently neutralized the chemicals in the drum.
No code violations were issued. The DEP plans to investigate the incident, Haag said.
In January, inspectors found an open container of waste alcohol, improperly labeled containers, inadequate emergency response plans and no weekly inspection logs.
At the June inspection, the DEP found the company had not put its federal ID number on a waste removal manifest and the ID number was illegible on another manifest, according to reports.
The DEP also found weekly inspection logs did not include the total number of hazardous waste drums in storage, and one drum was not recorded on the log properly.
Moog representatives at the Naples facility and in Blacksburg, Va., could not be reached for comment Monday.
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