POISONOUS FUMES.

Grey River Argus, 26 July 1922, Page 3

POISONOUS FUMES.

FACTORY EMPLOYEES OVERCOME Owing to the escape of fumes front the coke ovens, 50 or 60 of the employees of Joyce and Co., Ltd., biscuit manufacturers, of Lyons Road, Camper down, collapsed with dramatic suddenness. The sufferers comprised the majority of the employees, who total about 100. The others escaped, by rushing into the fresh air. According to eye-witnesses, the factory hands, most of them girls, fainted and collapsed in all directions under the overwhelming influence of the fumes. Of the sufferers 36 were treated at the Royal Prince Albert Hospital. Of these fifteen were admitted on account of their condition. The others, after being attended to, proceeded to their homes. L. Moore, of Leichhardt, a youth employed in the factory, and one of those detained for treatment in the hospital, had an experience which, he says, he will not readily forget, such was the overwhelming power of the fumes. He says he was first made aware of the position when at about 8 o’clock he saw the girls in the factory starting to faint and heard them screaming out. “They were fainting all over the place,” he said, “and dropping helpless everywhere. The manager, without any loss of time, ordered us out into the fresn. air. 1 was walking along to get my coat when 1 camo within range of tho fumes, and look a 'header.’ It was just as though someone had hit me on the head with a bottle. The ovens from which the fumes escaped are on the bottom floor. The fumes, quickly spreading in a faint blur, not only caught, those on the bottom floor, where most of the girls were working on the conveyers, but they percolated through to the floor above, and the employees there who had not already escaped were also affected. I believe I was unconscious for about a quarter of an hour. was an extraordinary sight. The employees were fainting all over the place, upstairs ujbl downstairs,”