Rotten Office Fridge Cleanup Sends 7 To Hospital 410
bokske writes "An office worker cleaning a fridge full of rotten food created a smell so noxious that it sent seven co-workers to the hospital and made many others ill. Firefighters had to evacuate the AT&T building in downtown San Jose on Tuesday, after the flagrant fumes prompted someone to call 911. A hazmat team was called in. Just another day at the office."
Cowboy Bebop, Anyone? (Score:5, Funny)
Apparantly (Score:3, Funny)
Better be careful... (Score:2, Funny)
I hear you can be arrested for taking pictures of an open 'fridge's innards. ;-)
=Smidge=
Indiana Jones (Score:5, Funny)
The main rule (Score:5, Funny)
If you can't tell what something is through the plastic wrapper due to strange color or texture, then don't open it! Nothing good ever came out of one of these packages.
sounds like vegimite (Score:5, Funny)
just smelling it killed my apetite for a month.
new Zealanders eat it like as if it were creamcheese
could have been vegimite
And the one cleaning the fridge? (Score:4, Funny)
28 people to need treatment for vomiting and nausea.
There is no justice.
Authorities said the worker who cleaned the fridge didn't need treatment â" she can't smell because of allergies.
You idiots.... (Score:2, Funny)
Oh Man! They threw Away My Lunch! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:sounds like vegimite (Score:3, Funny)
It's "Vegemite" and yes, it is an "acquired taste"
(best acquired in childhood)
Aha! (Score:2, Funny)
My fridge... (Score:2, Funny)
If someone opened my fridge right now....I'd be charged with chemical or biological warfare...it's horrendous.
The lower compartments I haven't opened in several months and I know whatever is growing down there is alive...
Food goes to its grave in my fridge.
Re:The main rule (Score:5, Funny)
Likewise, when someone says 'Hey, smell this,' never, NEVER do it. It will not end well.
That's the first rule I taught my children. Then I moved on to that talking to strangers thing.
Re:Cowboy Bebop, Anyone? (Score:5, Funny)
It's livin' in the Fridge! you can't stop the mold from groooooowwwiiinnnn...
It wasn't the Fridge... (Score:5, Funny)
Note that if you read the sentence carefully, there is nothing that said the fridge itself was the cause of the odor!
"AN OFFICE WORKER cleaning a fridge full of rotten food CREATED A SMELL so noxious that it sent seven co-workers to the hospital..."
I'm pretty sure every office has one of those guys...
Not Friday... (Score:3, Funny)
true story from my brothers office (Score:5, Funny)
My brother used to work in an office that was (badly) converted from an old bakery about 10 years previously. There was the usual large store/junk room around the back where stuff was just piled up until they ran out of room. Eventually they had to clear it out. Right at the back of the room buried under a huge pile of stuff was quite a large chest freezer. It wasn't turned on but it was locked shut.
They tried to shift it but it was too heavy and obviously full. This should have rung a few alarm bells but no. They busted the lock open with a crow bar and opened it up. Projectile vomiting all round the moment the lid was opened. 3 people taken to hospital. It required a very specialised hazmat / cleaning team to sort it out in the long term as it turned out the freezer had been used to store raw meat for pies and pasties and that meat had been in there for about 11 years or so. Did I mention the room got very hot in the summer...
New Slashdot Meme: (Score:5, Funny)
"Throwed up all over monitor."
Thanks.
Reminds me of 5th grade (Score:3, Funny)
I used to stock thermoses with rancid milk to clear out class at Catholic school. Just let them sit in the back of the class locker for 3 months and pop one when you need one less Religion class to deal with in your life.
Re:It wasn't the Fridge... (Score:3, Funny)
I don't know what it was, but it had the power to clear the second-floor break room in about 30 seconds.
Re:Cowboy Bebop, Anyone? (Score:3, Funny)
Toys in the Attic:
"So what was the real lesson? Don't leave things in the fridge."
I was just about to post the same thing. I wonder whether the hazmat team included a kid to just eat the offending rot.
Re:Paaaleeese (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The main rule (Score:5, Funny)
if I'm going to smell something, it's either going to be on a flat surface, or in MY hand.
Acid fumes teach you that lesson real quick.
Let me get this straight so I don't mess it up ... if I'm going to be smelling acid fumes, I should pour the acid on my hand first?
Re:There's something weird in the fridge today... (Score:5, Funny)
As far as I'm concerned... (Score:4, Funny)
That's totally something for one's resume. It's a mark of distinction.
I can picture it now:
AT&T Research, San Jose (1999-2010)
* Made things suck less
* Shuffled papers
* Almost got killed by rotten office fridge.
Re:Just another day at the office for me... (Score:4, Funny)
>During large thunderstorms, the sewer pipes often see huge flows that scour all the grease that people dump down the drain (DON'T DUMP GREASE DOWN THE DRAIN!) in to large globs the size of beach balls. These tend to block flow at the waste-water stations and cause sewer backup
There's an easy solution to this problem: start dumping chips of plutonium down the all the drains. Whenever there's a stop-up, they'll collect in a mass and that'll fix the blockage.
You may observe that there are some collateral problems with dumping lots of plutonium down the drain. I have an answer for that, too: we train gorillas to go into the sewers and collect all the plutonium chips that haven't been used. Then once winter comes...
Re:The main rule (Score:5, Funny)
If it has a name but no date, LEAVE IT ON THEIR DESK ON FRIDAY at 5:00PM.
If it has a name and an old date, LEAVE IT ON THEIR DESK ON FRIDAY at 5:00PM.
Every month or so, check if anyone is on a 3 week vacation, then send out an e-mail saying "Everything in the fridge gets LEFT ON THE VACATIONERS DESK", and then do it.
Re:Just another day at the office for me... (Score:3, Funny)
Radioactive Gorillas? That's almost as good as Sharks with Frickin' lasers!
Re:Ammonia & Bleach (Score:5, Funny)
I know what I'm doing this weekend!
Must have been chemicals (Score:5, Funny)
When I was in college, someone left a fridge on the third floor of the fraternity house with leftover pizza, a watermelon, and about a quart of turkey chili in it over the summer. Someone else, possessed by his own moral righteousness, or because he was a dick, unplugged it. About three weeks later, we had a plague of flies. I found the fridge in a pool of black spooge with maggots in the carpet.
On discovering the fridge would fit through the window, I chained the ol' Jeep to the dumpster and drug it under the window. We then shoved the fridge, on it's back, out the window.
And missed the dumpster
The fridge struck an electrical box on the outside wall, and flipped, which caused it to hit the side of the dumpster, burst open, and land in our parking lot.
Nobody went to the hospital, but it took days to get the smell off our hands.
Your mother doesn't work here (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Paaaleeese (Score:5, Funny)
Unfortunately, I am now officially this thread's troll.
Re:What no Dirk? (Score:5, Funny)
I was going to, but I was stuck trying to figure out how to get my couch out of the stair well.
Re:The main rule (Score:5, Funny)
That's a pretty good rule for dating, as well.
Re:Paaaleeese (Score:5, Funny)
The fungus took my baby!
Re:Cowboy Bebop, Anyone? (Score:4, Funny)
Not sure if you're referencing it, but someone already made the link:
Cowboy Bebop / Weird Al Anime Music Video [youtube.com]
At my office... no fish... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Paaaleeese (Score:2, Funny)
Some people work around bad smells, they learn to live with it.
Some people work around flashing light patterns. Others get epileptic seizures from electric rodents: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denn%C5%8D_Senshi_Porygon [wikipedia.org]
Re:Paaaleeese (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Paaaleeese (Score:4, Funny)
A bebbee et mah dingo!
Re:The main rule (Score:1, Funny)
you get 3 week vacations?
I hate you and your moldy fridge.
Re:Chemistry lab (Score:4, Funny)
Occasionally you get a chem student who thinks the fume hood works like the sneeze guard at a salad bar and forgets that he has to actually turn it on himself.
Re:Must have been chemicals (Score:2, Funny)
Damn, I'm not sure which story was better: the dude with the meat freezer in the back of a shed, or the one with the flying fridge and the maggot-carpet?
I know, mods vote!
+1 Insightful for meat freezer,
+1 Informative for maggot-carpet.
(Hey, it could work.)
Re:Ammonia & Bleach (Score:5, Funny)
Getting ass-raped by Homeland Security?
Re:Fark (Score:4, Funny)
Hey, young 7-digit poster. Welcome. Yes, occasionally there is overlap between Slashdot and Fark, Reddit or even Digg. It's okay. You read it in both places, so obviously you frequent places that think their audience is interested -- meaning either you frequent the wrong sites, or this is interesting to your kind of person. Not that it auto-loaded the link... it only provided the description to allow you to judge it.
If you don't like what Slashdot posts, send in links to better sites. Find better News for Nerds, more gross News for Nerds with Desk Jobs or whatever, and send them on in. You could even be a Badass Link Gamer and rake through other sites and submit them to Slashdot. It's been a long time gone since this was the Hack a Netpliance and QueCat site it was when I signed up, but I've stayed through. I've since found Digg and don't need to load Slashdot more than twice a day any more.
If we're lucky, a crotchety old 5 digit poster will come along and say how different things were 6 months before I joined than they are today.
Re:true story from my brothers office (Score:5, Funny)
why would you do that? Did you keep the deepfreeze? God, man, why?
Well, a younger and more naive me thought that I could just blast it out with a powerwasher. For those contemplating similar projects: give up. Seriously. It can't be done. If my wife and I can't scrub something clean, it's uncleanable.
Thinks tried and abandoned:
We eventually resorted to selling it to my cheap friend Curtis. There's nothing he won't tolerate for a bargain.
Re:Hysteria (Score:3, Funny)
Re:sounds like vegimite (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Just another day at the office for me... (Score:3, Funny)
If you ever happen to stroll around in sewers (it's not as terrible as it seems) - you'll find these little 'white mice' have a habit of all congregating in one place, due to their similar buoyancy properties, I imagine.
Under London, in the famous River Fleet sewer, there's a little side-tunnel named 'Tampon Alley', for a very good reason.
Re:Paaaleeese (Score:5, Funny)
Effect = Noun
Not always!
"Barack Obama sought the office of President of the United States of America because of his deep desire to effect change in Washington."
Grammatically correct, yet factually wrong. He wanted to "effect change" in his wallet. And in his KFC bucket.
Oops, too soon? Sorry.
Mold ain't so bad... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Indiana Jones (Score:4, Funny)
Of course not. He has never, and will never, be in a fridge. NEVER EVER!