FYI be careful out there.

[mariomike]

Dangerous Japanese 'Detergent Suicide' Technique Creeps Into U.S.

By Kevin Poulsen March 13, 2009   

A suicide technique that mixes household chemicals to produce a deadly hydrogen sulfide gas became a grisly fad in Japan last year. Now it's slowly seeping into the United States over the internet, according to emergency workers, who are alarmed at the potential for innocent causalities.

At least 500 Japanese men, women and children took their lives in the first half of 2008 by following instructions posted on Japanese websites, which describe how to mix < snip > to create a poisonous gas. One site includes an application to calculate the correct portions of each ingredient based on room volume, along with a PDF download of a ready-made warning sign to alert neighbors and emergency workers to the deadly hazard.

The first sign that the technique was migrating to the United States came in August, when  a 23-year-old California man was found dead in his car behind a Pasadena shopping center. The  VW Beetle's doors were locked, the windows rolled up and a warning sign had been posted in one of the windows. Police and firefighters evacuated the shopping crew before a hazmat crew in chemical suits extracted the body and began cleaning up the grisly scene.

Then in December, emergency workers responding to a call at Lake Allatoona in Bartow County, Georgia, found a similar scene. Inside the car — along with the body — were two buckets containing a yellow substance. A note on the window said "Caution" and identified the chemical compound by name.

Nobody connected the cases until last month, when a Texas surgeon realized that a new and dangerous suicide method was making the rounds. Dr. Paul Pepe, chief of emergency medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center, warned emergency workers that they could become innocent casualties of the technique if they're not careful. Other experts agree.

"The normal response for an EMS, is they're going to break open the window," says August Vernon, assistant coordinator for the Forsyth County Office of Emergency Management, who was consulted by the Department of Homeland Security on the danger this week. "And that's a pretty normal call: someone unconscious inside the car. Fortunately, those people left notes, which is pretty unusual and a good thing."

"Eventually," he adds, "someone isn't going to leave a note."

Police officers in protective gear enter an apartment in Konan, southern Japan Thursday, April 24, 2008. A Japanese girl gassed herself to death by mixing laundry detergent with cleanser, releasing fumes that sickened 90 people in her apartment house.

(AP Photo/Kyodo News) The American version of the method substitutes a common insecticide for the bath sulfur used in the Japanese recipe; bath sulfur isn't available in the United States. But the tweak does nothing to make the gas less dangerous for people nearby. In one of the Japanese cases last year, 90 residents in an apartment building were sickened when a 14-year-old girl used hydrogen sulfide (H2S) to take her life.

The so-called "detergent suicides" in Japan sparked considerable and ongoing interest on the Alt.Suicide Usenet groups, where people considering suicide share tips and tricks. This week, one depressed man wrote of his plan to release hydrogen sulfide gas in his car while driving, in the hope that he'll lose consciousness and crash -- making it look like an accident.

"I got the idea to use hydrogen sulfide poisoning by reading of the  tremendous success (for lack of a better word) that the Japanese people have had with it," he wrote on Monday.  "It is their most common suicide method. I understand that the method smells but I have found the stench of  failure in my life as well."

When other newsgroup denizens pointed out the recklessness of his plan, he gave it up as too risky to innocent bystanders. After exploring other techniques, the man announced on Wednesday that he decided he'd rather live.

"With months of research I have discovered that there is no 'easy' or 'painless' or 'quick' way to die," he wrote. "So, from here on out I am going to pick up the pieces to my life! Maybe you should too."

(Top photo: A hazmat team responds to a chemical suicide near a Pasadena shopping center. Courtesy Terry Miller, Beacon Media News)

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/03/japanese-deterg.html

 

[mariomike]

North York neighborhood evacuated after suicidal woman releases toxic chemicals
Posted: May 10, 2009, 6:03 PM by Scott Maniquet

By Kathryn Blaze Carlson, National Post

Toronto police evacuated part of a North York neighbourhood after a suicidal woman released a toxic chemical compound into the air, causing her own death and threatening the safety of families in roughly 50 nearby homes and a local secondary school.

The unidentified woman, reportedly in her mid-50s, called police around 10:15 Sunday morning threatening to take her own life by way of a hazardous chemical cocktail, which police believe to be hydrogen sulfide, a colorless and highly toxic gas that was allegedly formed by the combination of two otherwise harmless household substances.

When police services and the fire department arrived at the home at 95 Empress Ave., officers smelled a chemical odor of rotten eggs, prompting what would turn out to be a protocol evacuation of 100-metre area on a sunny Mother’s Day morning.

“Our initial response was an evacuation, believing there may be a potentially deadly gas in the air,” said Capt. Adrian Ratushniak, of Toronto Fire Services, adding that chemicals were, indeed, later found in the home. “We were aware that there could be a danger to other people in the area.”

While exposure to lower concentrations of hydrogen sulfide can result in eye irritation, a sore throat, or headache, inhaling high concentrations of the chemical compound can cause suffocation and death.

And so, unbeknownst to Paul Ripley, an Empress Avenue resident who lives within the initial evacuation perimeter and slept through the incident, hazmat crews cautiously entered the home and found that the woman, alone, had already passed on.

Clad in head-to-toe rubberized and fully encapsulated grey suits, self-contained breathing masks, gloves, and neon orange boots, the officers removed the woman from the home and later began an investigation into what, exactly, caused her death.

“We took an abundance of caution because we have to figure out what the chemical was,” said Inspector Randy Carter, watching on as hazmat officers went to and fro the home, which was surrounded by roughly ten fire trucks and another ten police cars, around 2:30 p.m. Sunday.

“There’s a lot of training that goes into preparing for this sort of event, and today, that training became a reality,” he said, adding that no emergency services officers nor neighbours have since reported being affected by the chemical release. By 3:00 p.m., neither the body nor the chemicals had been moved offsite out of an abundance of caution.

Through the course of the morning and early afternoon, eleven police cars, some carrying Chemical Biological Radiological Nuclear response team members, and roughly nine fire trucks, were dispatched to the home which was blocked off by yellow police tape, according to Toronto police and fire services.

Still, much of the neighborhood outside the evacuation zone appeared largely unfazed, as garage sales, afternoon strolls, and bush-pruning continued as usual over the backdrop of chirping birds and lawn-mowers. Nearby, a red HazMat Rehab truck was stocked with NutriGrain bars, Gatorade sports drinks, and bottles of water, to keep the crew hydrated and nourished as it scoured the scene, according to one man managing the truck.

Meanwhile, officers knocked on an estimated 50 doors in a bid to clear the area and ensure public safety. At nearby Earl Haig Secondary School, more than 50 people were evacuated from the gym, which had been rented out for recreational basketball.

L.C. Lee, who lives across from the scene and slightly west, said he was shocked to be greeted at the door at around 10:30 a.m. by a police officer asking him to leave his home immediately. “He didn’t tell me why, just that I should take what I need and leave as soon as possible,” said Mr. Lee, after returning to his home around 2 p.m. “I just took my keys, my wallet, some money, and my phone. I had to leave my dog,” he said, adding that he and his wife spent the nearly four hours wandering the neighborhood and watching as the scene unfolded.

Although Mr. Lee and others did, indeed, leave the area, a police-ordered bus scheduled to transport evacuees was cancelled due to a lack of demand, said Insp. Carter. “We’re not going to drag people out of their homes kicking and screaming,” he said, adding that it was up to residents to decide whether or not to evacuate.

Though by early afternoon the evacuation area had been slimmed down to the short block of Empress Avenue between Kenneth Avenue and halfway to the next street over at Dudley Avenue and encompassed less than half a dozen homes, and despite the fact that thee was no longer a threat to the public, the immediate area was abuzz with shock and speculation.

“It scares me to think I was asleep in my house the whole time this was going on,” said Mr. Ripley, over a noise that sounded much like a vaccuum cleaner coming from the nearby cordonned-offscene. “I had no idea. I’m totally surprised that this has happened.”

Indeed, Staff Sgt. Mike Stones, of Toronto Police Services, said he cannot remember the last time something like this happened in Toronto. “This is certainly a rarity,” he said.

photo: Concerned residents look out of their Empress Avenue home in North York where firefighters removed the body of a person who died due to a chemical in a home, Sunday May 10, 2009. (Peter J. Thompson/National Post)

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/toronto/archive/2009/05/10/north-york-neighborhood-evacuated-after-suicidal-woman-releases-toxic-chemicals.aspx

 

[fire_guy686]

I heard about this from a buddy recently. Some scary stuff.