AMBULANCE CALL ESCALATES INTO HAZ-MAT RESPONSE AFTER EMT’S GET CONTAMINATED

HERNDON — Two Dalmatia Ambulance crew members were taken to the hospital with upper respiratory problems Monday after treating a 27-year-old man who claimed he suffered a chemical burn while riding a train through southern Northumberland County.

Norfolk Southern Corp. spokesman Rudy Husband said the burned man’s story doesn’t add up and there’s no evidence he was even on a train.

State police Cpl. George Ritchey said an investigation was continuing to determine what happened.

“There is no reason for public alarm,” he said. He refused to identify the man unless criminal charges are filed.

The 8:45 a.m. incident in Jackson Township, just south of Herndon, brought out Northumberland County’s hazardous-materials team, state police, Norfolk Southern Corp. railroad police, state Department of Environmental Protection representatives and several area fire and ambulance departments.

Identified by police only as a 27-year-old who lives outside the area, the man knocked on several homes and businesses in Herndon asking for help, Herndon Assistant Fire Chief Ron Hinckley said.

No one allowed the man inside, but someone called 911.

Among the first to reach the man in a parking lot off Route 147 next to the Lower Northumberland County Senior Action Center was the Dalmatia Ambulance. Edward Carl Sr. and Eric Shrawder were treating the man, who was apparently burned, inside an ambulance when they became sick, Hinckley said.

“They were having trouble breathing and (experiencing) respiratory distress,” he said.

Northumberland County’s hazmat team was called to the scene, and all three men were stripped naked and doused with a cleansing solution from a decontamination unit set up in the lot.

While first responders tried to shield the men from being seen by passersby, no one could protect them from the 20-degree chill.

Carl and Shrawder were taken by ambulance to Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, where they were treated and released.

The burned man was flown by helicopter to the burn unit at Lehigh Valley Medical Center, Allentown. His condition was unknown.

First-responders were tight-lipped at the scene, but Husband said in a telephone interview that the burned man’s story raised questions from the start.

Specifically in question is his claim that he got on a train illegally in Philadelphia and rode it to Herndon where he jumped off.

Norfolk Southern doesn’t run trains between Philadelphia and Herndon, Husband said, and all trains passing through the small Northumberland County borough travel at 40 mph.

“There was no evidence of anyone jumping off a train,” Husband said.

Also, only one train passed through the borough Monday morning, and it was an empty coal train.

Husband said Norfolk Southern does transport chemicals, but the material is contained in tanks.

Clothing was found in a Herndon park on Lower Road, just feet from the railroad tracks and about a mile from the parking lot where the hazmat team convened, but it didn’t immediately shed light on the type and source of chemical that may have caused the problems, Northumberland County Emergency Services Director Paul Froutz said.

The area where the clothing was found was roped off while several children played on a hill several feet away.

The ambulance in which the burned man was initially treated and the two EMTs were overcome was left in the parking lot and roped off until the substance could be identified and the interior thoroughly cleaned.