An accident spill and exposure to insecticide has left an 8 month old infant dead and four children poisoned and in the hospital. The incident occurred at an apartment in Fort MacMurray, and the apartment building was evacuated by emergency personnel including RCMP officers. The substance which was spilled is called Phosphine, and it is utilized as an insecticide and can be fatal to humans who are exposed to it. According to RES deputy chief of operations Brad Grainger “The danger is that it’s regulated and it’s regulated for a reason. With this type of exposure and the time that the family was exposed to it, it just continued to compound the issue is what it ended up doing. The family presented themselves at the hospital, because they were all sick, and they presented a sample of the product at the hospital. Our dangerous goods team was called in because the hospital was unable to identify it.”

When discussing the children poisoned by the accidental insecticide spill and the incident itself Grainger continued by saying “When we talk about a limited short-term exposure … that’s within 15 minutes, and you have to get in, get out and go back to a well-ventilated area. If you’re not, then an area of 50 ppm can be immediately life threatening. We ended up doing an across-the-board air quality testing, which doesn’t specifically earmark this … because we didn’t know what it was. (Monday) we were able to calibrate our machines to test for that specifically.” Prayers from many Fort MacMurray residents are with the parents and surviving children.