Two ambulance crew members were taken to the hospital with upper respiratory problems in Pennsylvania on Monday after treating a 27-year-old man who claimed he suffered a chemical burn while hitching a ride on a Norfolk Southern train through southern Northumberland County.
Among the first to reach the man, two EMTs were treating him for apparent burns inside an ambulance when they became sick, too.
They were having trouble breathing and experiencing respiratory distress.
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.
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. He said the only train passing through the area during the morning in question was an empty coal train, and any material that may have caused chemical burns would have been contained in tank cars.
The full story appears on the Daily Item website.