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E-mail StoryPesticide sickens area field workers
| Thursday, Aug 31 2006 9:55 PM
Last Updated: Thursday, Aug 31 2006 9:59 PM
Pesticide spraying sickened about 30 farmworkers near Mettler on Thursday morning, including seven who had to go to the hospital.
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Their conditions were unclear Thursday evening.
The affected people worked for Giumarra Vineyards but were contaminated by fungicide sprayed at neighboring Hall Farming vineyards, said David Moore, director of the Kern County Department of Agriculture and Measurement Standards.
Thirteen suffered eye and respiratory irritations, said Kern County fire Capt. Benny Wofford. One patient suffered nausea and vomiting, he said, while another had to have oxygen administered.
About 43 Giumarra employees were working at the site when the incident happened, Wofford said.
"All of a sudden, we saw a lot of smoke like when there is a fog coming in and we noticed that they were fumigating in the next farm over," one of the workers, Antonio Estrada, 46, said in Spanish.
Estrada said he and his co-workers knew from training that they needed to get out of the area.
One of the injured workers, Irene Lopez, 35, said she was suffering from vomiting and a headache as she was put in an ambulance and transported to the hospital.
Another worker, Maria Gutierrez, 49, said, "My throat got irritated and it burned."
Five ambulances responded to the call, which Hall Ambulance spokesman Mark Corum said was received at 8:26 a.m.
Wofford said five county Fire Department units and about 40 emergency personnel were at the scene, including environmental health and county agriculture department workers.
A staging area was set up on the corner of Wheeler Ridge and David roads near the site of the accident, which, according to Wofford, occurred south of Valpredo Avenue and west of Wheeler Ridge Road.
The staging area included a decontamination tent with showers.
Several of the patients made mobile phone calls as they waited to be decontaminated.
For decontamination, patients stripped down to their underwear then donned disposable decontamination suits and booties. They wore tags indicating their level of injury, Corum said.
Corum said three patients were transported to San Joaquin Community Hospital and four to Mercy Hospital.
He said 24 patients signed releases declining medical assistance.
"We are pleased to learn that emergency crews responded quickly to the situation so that the workers could be treated immediately," said Dale Nicol, volunteer chairman of the Kern Drift Prevention Coalition, in a news release.
The coalition, made up of local farmers, spray applicators and others, fights against pesticide drifts.
Nicol, himself a licensed pest control adviser, said the key to safe spraying is to have an attitude of looking out for your neighbor.
"The idea is that of looking up out of your own furrow at the fellow's grapes next door," Nicol said. "See if they are reaching maturity. It's an anticipatory look at what's going on outside your own field."
Moore said the fungicide involved in the accident is called Bortran 6-25 Sulfur Dust. It was being applied by a tractor to the Hall Farming grapevines to prevent mildew, he said.
"It is a warning-category material," Moore said, on a caution-warning-danger severity scale.
Moore said there was no danger to other people in the area.
"Any drift would have been contained in a relatively short distance," he said. "This is a dust material that settles."
Moore said an investigation of what actually happened is ongoing.
"Bilingual biologists will be interviewing everyone involved and taking samples of physical evidence," he said.
Nicol said that when a spray drift incident is considered a violation, the fine could range from hundreds to thousands of dollars.
Mark Hall, owner of Hall Farming, said the county Department of Agriculture has contacted him about the investigation, but he declined to talk to the media.
Hall, a director on the board of the Kern County Farm Bureau, let the bureau's executive director, Matthew Park, speak on his behalf.
Park said Hall's spray applicator noticed no farmworkers in the surrounding farms and vineyards before starting spraying Thursday morning.
But toward the end of the spraying, Giumarra workers had moved within drift range, he said.
"Mr. Hall feels terrible about the incident," Park said. "Nothing was done intentionally. He is concerned about the safety of the workers even though they are not employees of his."
While remarking that accidents such as Thursday's are "extremely rare," Moore pointed out that, "It's unacceptable for people's health to be affected by pesticide application."