Five Treated After Odor in New York Subway

[shawn703]

At least five subway workers were being treated for exposure to an "unknown substance" in the New York subway system on Wednesday, the day before the U.S. Thanksgiving Holiday, a fire department spokesman said.
Firefighters and other emergency services personnel were checking the southbound "F" line from the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan to Chinatown for the cause of an odor in a tunnel, spokesman Paul Iannizzotto said.


more...
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/reuters20031126_264.html

[rjbcar27]

1. Sorry, I farted.

:-)

[shawn703]

2. That's exactly what I was thinking when I saw the article

It could also have been Sean Hannity's bag of BS he carries with him on the way to work.

[Don_G]

12. Or This

[tridim]

3. It was a rare day

that the subway didn't carry some odor. Urine was the Odor D'jour with the occasional smell of raw sewage and human excriment thrown in for good measure. Maybe I have a oversensitive nose, but the smell of the Subway was one of the main reasons I left NYC. I couldn't take the 40 minute commute from Queens to the city every damn day. I felt ill almost every morning.

[dreissig]

4. Consequence of Homelessness

No one knows how many homeless live in the subway tunnels, but there are lots of them. The tunnels are warm in the winter, cool in the summer. Needless to say, there are no facilities.

[TheBlob]

5. That's my line to and from work.

Gotta catch the southbound F train from Chelsea to go home in about 15 minutes.

[peacebuzzard]

6. I am being treated too...

for the F train contamination. Rx for high blood pressure, migraines, thyroid problems (from overeating a heavy pasta and pantry diet). NYC commuting is one of a kind --it's nasty and convenient. But at least I have a job and alot of people out there dream of jobs as their unemployment run out. I have only been there for 6 months...it was that or the unemployment line in Tennessee. :*

[Drifter]

7. I can almost hear Letterman now ...

Cheers
Drifter

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

8. I'll be interested to see what the cause is. n/t

[DoYouEverWonder]

9. Doesn't the subway always stink?

Mix that with the eau of the regular rush hour crowd and you have a lethal combination.

[truthisfreedom]

10. who knows what this is about. i fail to see the humor.

[CaptainClark23]

11. Its a New York thing...

Its amazing the things we manage to find humor in. We kid. It helps if you live here.

From what I can glean, this was a workplace incident. Workers in the tunnels overcome by fumes. The fumes could be from something spilled in the course of work, from a sewer line leaking into the tunnel, or from any of a number of causes.

Not saying they should not have shut down the F line while they tested for safety, but in the absense of any evidence of criminal mischief, there's nothing to be excited about.

Hope the MTA folks are alright. They are at St. Vinny's, they're in good hands.

[TankLV]

13. Hey - I SWEAR I wasn't even near the subway!

But those baked beans were pretty good last nite!

[Kat45]

14. Weird - A similar thing happened in Boston yesterday.

An MBTA train carrying several hundred people through downtown Boston was evacuated yesterday after a handful of passengers complained of respiratory problems, authorities said.
The train was taken to a train yard in East Boston where a hazardous materials team combed the inside and discovered a container of pepper spray, MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo said.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2003/11/26/pepper_spray_spurs_train_evacuation/