Chemical Spill in Canada Offers Cautionary Tale About Mixing Chemicals

From Castanet.net:

Six people were released from Kelowna General Hospital after a chemical mixture caused a hotel to evacuate on Monday.

A pool attendant inhaled the gases after mixing acid and chlorine together by accident.

Assistant fire chief Brent Watson says the gas was isolated to the maintenance area of the pool at the Best Western Plus Wine Country Hotel & Suites.

“He thought he was pouring chlorine into chlorine, when in fact it was acid being poured into the chlorine which created a binary mixture which gave off a noxious gas,” said Watson.

West Kelowna firefighters acted very quickly to get the hotel evacuated which included about 20 people and Kelowna’s Hazmat crew worked together to get the bucket (containing the hazardous mix) out of the building.