More than a dozen Mass. State Police members checked for injuries after explosion at fire academy
BOSTON - More than a dozen members of Massachusetts State Police were checked for injuries by medical personnel after an explosion during a training at the Massachusetts Fire Academy, WBZ has learned.
The incident happened in June. Video provided by the Department of Fire Services shows two members of Massachusetts State Police in Personal Protective Equipment. The members are seen shaking two bottles of chemicals and when the chemicals are put down, the bottles explode.
A Fire Services spokesperson said the mixture in the bottles included two commonly available chemicals that could be found in illicit drug labs and no one from their department reported injuries. But, a letter obtained by WBZ from Fire Services to the company that put on the training, Safeware, says five people were assessed at a nearby hospital and 12 complained of various injuries.
Bomb squad equipment damaged
The letter also states that the incident resulted in "significant property damage" to Massachusetts State Police Bomb Squad equipment including protective suits and breathing apparatus. Fire Services asked Safeware to pay $35,746 to replace the equipment.
"Even when handled by trained professionals under controlled conditions, the chemicals used in illicit drug manufacturing pose a grave risk of fire, explosion, and injury," a Fire Services Spokesperson told WBZ in a statement, "We're very fortunate that the two State Police personnel performing the demonstration were wearing the appropriate PPE."
The video does show an individual close to the explosion who is not wearing PPE. A freeze frame of the video shows the man being sprayed with chemicals. Fire Services says he was assessed at the scene, and it is unclear if he went to the hospital.
"One pot cook" training
Brian Escamilla and Jerry Bucklin, the President and the Founder of law enforcement training firm NES, Inc., say they have conducted hundreds of what they call "one pot cooks," as shown in the DFS training video. When they conduct trainings, they say only instructors handle the cooks with a trained chemist on the scene and everyone involved wears PPE.
"We're actually doing the cook ourselves. We're not telling someone what needs to be done," Bucklin said. "We have nobody not appropriately suited up to be within probably 20 to 30 feet."
Escamilla told WBZ it appears that ammonia gas may have built up in the bottle used in the DFS training.
"If there's any type of moisture, whether it's on in the bottle or on one of the re-agents it would start the generation of ammonia gas and then by capping the bottle and containing the gas, that runs the risk of the container failing. That's what we saw there," he said.
It is unknown what chemicals were used in this training, but Escamilla and Bucklin say any of them have the potential to cause injury.
"The sodium hydroxide when it gets on your skin will actually start to break down the proteins causing skin burns. If it goes airborne, it will react with the mucus membranes and start causing irritation and burns along the mucus membrane," Escamilla said.
NES Inc. held a contract to conduct trainings with Massachusetts for over three decades but lost the contract to the company involved in this training video, Hazard3, which is owned by Safeware.
WBZ reached out to Safeware for comment but did not get a response.