Muriatic acid fumes send four campers to hospital

MARTINSVILLE, Ind. (WISH) - A chemical spill at a campground sends four people to the hospital. It happened at The Bradfood Woods Campground on State Road 67 in Martinsville.

Two chemicals mixed together in a pool house - creating a dangerous vapor that affected three camp counselors and one camper.  It only took a tiny amount of the chemicals to produce an overwhelming vapor. Firefighters and paramedics from 8 area agencies responded to the spill.

Camp counselors alerted management to the problem sometime around 3:30 Thursday afternoon.  The counselors say they reported the incident immediately.  Firefighters say a small amount of chlorine and muriatic acid mixed together in the pool house. The mixture created the choking vapor.

The camp director told us the pool house - located 40 feet from the pool - is always locked.

When the vapor escaped, 18 campers with physical disabilites were in the pool along with 13 adults. Most patients were decontaminated and triaged by medical personnel.  They were hosed down and cleaned and transferred over to triage where our EMT's took all their vital signs.

Paramedics did take one camper to Riley Children's Hospital for breathing treatments.  Three adults, all camp counselors, received similar treatments in Martinsville.  All four are now in stable condition.
 

Muriatic acid, also known as Hydrochloric acid, is used to adjust the acidity of pool water and used in plumbing applications. It is the same chemical blamed for killing two people in Muncie, Ind. just weeks ago.