How did these people die? I saw this in my local news blog this a.m., it caught my

[SWBTATTReg]

attention...Of course it's terribly sad and a shame, my cousin used to work in a turkey processing plant in Arkansas, she's never touched Turkey since. This is one of those fields where trump's unilateral actions to cut legal immigration down, reduced the number of people willing to do this type of work. Probably why our chicken and/or turkey products have gone up in price, can't find enough workers.

Liquid nitrogen leak at Georgia poultry plant kills 6, Posted on Jan 28, 2021

GAINESVILLE, Ga, (AP) — A liquid nitrogen leak at a northeast Georgia poultry plant killed six people Thursday, with multiple others taken to the hospital. Beth Downs, a spokesperson for Northeast Georgia Health System, said five people died at the Gainesville plant before they could be taken to the hospital, while one person died in the emergency room.

The leak happened after 10 a.m. Thursday at Prime Pak Foods, Hall County Fire Department Division Chief Zach Brackett said. He said firefighters arrived to find workers milling around outside, some with injuries. At least four firefighters were injured and take to the Gainesville hospital with what Brackett described as respiratory complaints. Brackett said about 130 workers were taken by bus to a nearby church where they were examined for injuries; some were then taken to the hospital. Hall County school officials said students were being kept safe inside a nearby elementary school and said the leak was contained and not airborne. About 1.5 miles (2.5 kilometers) of a road that runs in front of the plant and school was closed.

Prime Pak Foods merged into Foundation Food Group, a company that takes raw chicken and processes it into products like chicken fingers and individual chicken cuts for restaurants and food service operations. The company’s CEO did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment. Gainesville is the center of Georgia’s poultry industry, which is the nation’s largest, with thousands of employees working for multiple processing plants.

Copyright 2021 KMOV (Meredith Corporation). All rights reserved

[DBoon]

1. That would be Nitrous Oxide

With pure nitrogen, you suffocate to death. I've heard it is actually painless, you just lose consciousness due to lack of oxygen.

[Nitram]

6. True. I'm surprised, though, that the concentration indoors could get high enough to kill people.

A nearby school could never have felt the effects once it dispersed into the atmosphere.

I found the following at the link below:

Nitrogen gas can cause suffocation without warning. Store and use liquid nitrogen only in a well ventilated place.

As the liquid evaporates, the resulting gas tends to displace the normal air from the area. In closed areas, excessive amounts of nitrogen gas reduce the concentration of oxygen and can result in asphyxiation. Because nitrogen gas is colorless, odorless and tasteless, it cannot be detected by the human senses and will be breathed as if it were air. Breathing an atmosphere that contains less than 19 percent oxygen can cause dizziness and quickly result in unconsciousness and death.

https://www.tedpella.com/cryo-supplies_html/HandlingLiquidNitrogen.htm

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. Nitrogen is not the same as nitrous oxide.

Breathing pure nitrogen will kill you because there's no oxygen. 78 percent of the air is nitrogen gas, so people assume that nitrogen is not harmful. However, nitrogen is safe to breathe only when mixed with the appropriate amount of oxygen. A nitrogen-enriched environment depletes oxygen, and can be detected only with special instruments. If the concentration of nitrogen is too high (and oxygen too low), the body becomes oxygen deprived and asphyxiation occurs. Nitrous oxide ('laughing gas') is a compound of nitrogen and oxygen used as an anesthetic and it is administered in a mixture with oxygen, so for short periods of time it isn't dangerous like pure nitrogen.

[SWBTATTReg]

4. Thanks for clarifying. I appreciate it, I don't know about the nitrogen, but I do know that

its a gas, kept very cold...

[Turbineguy]

5. It boils at -320 degrees F

So it freezes the lungs as well.

https://research.usu.edu/ehs/liquid-nitrogen/#:~:text=Liquid%20nitrogen%20is%20inert%2C%20colorless,(78%25%20by%20volume).&text=Cryogenic%20liquids%20are%20liquefied%20gases,C%20(%2D238o%20F).

[Nitram]

7. No, if you read the article at your link, it only causes contact burns to the skin.

It turns to a gas immediately once it is is released from inside a pressurized container and is no longer cold enough to harm you unless you re actually breathing it in directly from the nozzle. The injuries mentioned in that article I believe are due to breathing a high concentration of nitrogen, causing oxygen starvation.

Nitrogen is not toxic unless it is breathed in at great pressure (100 feet or more) below the ocean surface during a scuba dive. At 300 feet, nitrogen narcosis can cause symptoms that can lead to death. Spending too much time at depths of 30 feet or more can also result in crippling damage to muscles when a diver returns to the surface and bubbles of nitrogen escape the bloodstream and damage surrounding tissues.

[Turbineguy]

8. The latent heat of vaporization is low.

But if you are close to the leak it would still be very cold.

[Nitram]

9. Yes it would. But it would not "burn your lungs" unless you stuck your nose right up to

the nozzle and took a deep breath. Le's stick to the facts.