On Thursday morning, there was a leak at Fearmans Pork Inc., but the fire chief says no one was hurt badly
The fire chief of Burlington, Ontario, says that 20 workers at a slaughterhouse were taken to the hospital as a precaution after an ammonia leak.
Karen Roche told CBC Hamilton that the plant, which is run by Fearmans Pork Inc., uses ammonia as a coolant and that it leaked sometime after 11 a.m. ET on Thursday.
Roach said that enough ammonia got out to make a sensor go off, which made the fire department come.
Constable Steve Elms of the Halton Regional Police said that officers, paramedics, and the Ministry of Labour in Ontario all responded.
Roach said that the building had been cleared out and that workers were being moved to Appleby Arena and Mainway Arena.
She said that the amount of ammonia is going down and that the leak has been fixed, but the fire department will check back. Roach also said that workers might be able to go back to work in a few hours.
CBC Hamilton has asked for more information from the Ministry of Labour, the Regional Municipality of Halton, the City of Burlington, the company, and the workers’ union.
Ammonia can kill you if you breathe it in
The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS) says that ammonia is a colorless gas that can be used as a refrigerant and for other things.
It also says that ammonia is “very poisonous” and that if you breathe it in, it “can kill you.”
The CCOHS says it can cause a “life-threatening” buildup of fluid in the lungs and can also cause severe irritation in the nose and throat.
“The symptoms can show up hours after being exposed and get worse when you work out.” “Severe short-term exposure can cause damage that lasts for a long time,” reads the CCHOS profile of ammonia as a chemical.
According to its profile, it is also corrosive and can irritate or burn the skin and eyes of people. It can also cause permanent scarring and blindness.
Fearmans Pork Inc. is the same place where 65-year-old animal rights activist Ryan Russell died in June 2020 while protesting. He was hit by a truck that was bringing pigs into the slaughterhouse.
She was protesting a law in Ontario that made it illegal to get in the way of trucks carrying farm animals and raised the fines for breaking into farms and places where food is made.
Animal rights activists have been gathering at the plant’s front gate for a long time to give water to the pigs in the trucks waiting to get into the plant.