Cyanide Suspected In Sickening 7 L.A. Firefighters

As the fire and homicide investigation continues, officials say several firefighters were exposed to cyanide gas in two separate incidents as they were mopping up hot spots near the small city of Acton on the northern edge of the massive blaze.

The poisonous cyanide fumes are suspected in acute breathing problems suffered by Los Angeles firefighters battling the Station Fire in the Aliso Canyon. One firefighters suffered life-threatening respiratory arrest and remains in hospital after she was knocked out by noxious fumes on Sept. 1 near Acton.

Two days later, six firefighters suffered severe breathing difficulties in another part of the Aliso Canyon.

“On Sept. 1, a firefighter working on the Station Fire in the Aliso Canyon area of Acton was overcome by noxious fumes,” said the Los Angeles County Fire department. “The firefighter suffered respiratory arrest and was taken to a local medical facility for further treatment and evaluation.”

The firefighter remains in hospital.

“On Sept. 3, six firefighters were transported to a local hospital after being overwhelmed by unknown fumes in a different part of Aliso Canyon. The firefighters were treated and released,” said a statement.

“The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department HAZMAT unit responded to the two separate areas of Aliso Canyon to investigate the cause of the respiratory illnesses,” officials said.

After examining the sites, the Sheriff’s HAZMAT personnel detected trace cyanide concentration of 48 parts per million in the Alison Canyon area.

“In the area where the six firefighters were injured, the Sheriff’s HAZMAT unit found smoldering spots of fire, but no contamination traces of chemicals. The HAZMAT unit also found galvanized materials, baling wire, cans and bottles.

“During the investigation and rehabilitation, the sites of both the inhalation injuries have been cordoned off and secured.

Medical personnel have been advised of the Sheriff’s HAZMAT unit findings,” said a press release issued in Los Angeles on Saturday.

Authorities do not have an idea where the cyanide came from.

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From The Los Angeles Times

Officials said 10 firefighters had been taken to a hospital in two separate incidents, in which it appears they had stumbled upon hazardous materials. At one of those sites, health officials detected cyanide and one firefighter remains in the hospital. Officials are still not sure where the cyanide came from.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca has said investigators are probing the deaths as homicides. A source told The Times that “material that didn’t belong there” has been found at the site suspected to be where the fire started, a twice-scorched slope cordoned off by crime scene tape near Mile Marker 29 along Angeles Crest Highway.

The source would not identify the suspicious substance but said it was found in the brush off the highway, within walking distance of the turnoff at the center of the arson probe. The source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because it was an ongoing investigation, said the substance was taken to a lab for testing. The material is not a device, according to the source.

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Killer Chip Tracks Humans, Releases Poison

You can run, but you cannot hide … and if you try, one push of a button will cause a lethal poison to immediately begin flowing through your body.

That’s the Orwellian future a Saudi inventor was seeking to bring to Germany until that nation’s patent office announced last week it was rejecting his request to patent what has been dubbed the “Killer Chip.”

The tiny semiconductor device is intended to be surgically implanted or injected into the body, according to the patent application, for the purpose of tracking visitors from other nations by global-positioning satellites and preventing them from overstaying their visas.

A German Patent and Trademark Office spokeswoman told Deutsche Presse Agentur the inventor’s application, titled “Implantation of electronic chips in the human body for the purposes of determining its geographical location,” was submitted in October 2007 and published 18 months later, as required by law, in a patents database.

Under Germany’s patent law, inventions that are unethical or a danger to the public are not recognized.

via ‘Killer Chip’ tracks humans, releases poison.

Deputies OK After Cyanide Scare In Ponte Vedra, Florida

Two St. Johns County deputies and a woman have been released from a hospital after what authorities are calling a scare with cyanide.

Sergeant Chuck Mulligan says deputies confronted a group in a parking lot in Ponte Vedra on Thursday night. One of the men said he had an open container with cyanide and was planning to use it.

Mulligan says the area was decontaminated and the container was secured by another deputy wearing protective gear. He says preliminary results indicate the substance was the chemical sodium cyanide.

The man remains in the hospital for further observation.

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al Qaeda Operative Plots Poison Terror Strike From Prison Cell

Osama bin Laden’s “master poisoner” is planning terror outrages from his jail cell.

Home Office documents seen by the Mirror reveal Kamel Bourgass is recruiting extremist prisoners to communicate with undercover al-Qaeda operatives.

Bourgass, 33, is already serving life for murdering a police officer.

Held in segregation at a topsecurity jail, Bourgass is being monitored by secret services after evidence was found of a plot involving a “quantity of cyanide”.

Reports suggest he was using other inmates at Wakefield prison, West Yorks, their relatives and friends to link with al-Qaeda terrorists in London, where the poison was hidden. A source said: “Bourgass has tried to use cyanide before and appears intent on masterminding another attack, even from behind bars.

“He was taken out of circulation on the wing because we believe he was using others to get information to al-Qaeda operatives on the outside.

“Even locked up he remains a real threat to the public.”

He is also linked to Abu Musabal-Zarqawi, who beheaded Briton Ken Bigley in Iraq. Convicted of killing Det Con Stephen Oake, 40, during a police raid on a flat in Manchester in 2003, Bourgass is still described in Home Office reports as a “risk to life and state”.

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Hydrogen Cyanide Found In UNL Dorm Room

One floor of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Pound Hall was evacuated and the rest of the dorm put on lockdown for an hour and a half Sunday evening after police discovered potentially lethal hydrogen cyanide in a student’s room.

Just after 6 p.m., UNL police responded to a 911 call alerting them of a possible overdose poisoning, according to Capt. Carl Oestmann.

The call came from a 19-year-old UNL student living on the second floor of Pound Hall who had ingested a small amount of the chemical. Oestmann wouldn’t say exactly how much the student ingested or in what form, whether gas or liquid.

Within minutes of the 911 call, UNL police and the Lincoln Fire Department, including the department’s hazardous materials unit, were on the scene. Officers evacuated Pound’s second floor and put the rest of the dorm on lockdown, not wanting any student coming or going during a potentially dangerous situation, Oestmann said.

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