BAKERSFIELD, Calif. - More than 50 farm workers were exposed to a pesticide drift Friday morning southwest of Bakersfield.
The incident shut down harvesting operations after some of those workers complained of sudden illness.
The
workers were in the process of harvesting cabbage for Dan Andrews Farms
in a field off Copus Road when they began to get sick.
"We
started getting an odor, pesticide odor, coming in from the mandarin
orchards west of our field," said Efron Zavalza, Supervisor and Food
Safety Specialist, Dan Andrews Farms.
Zavalza said a Sun Pacific
Farms orchard was sprayed Thursday night with Vulcan, an
organophosphate-based chemical that is land applied.
Health officials said it is highly toxic.
"I'm
not pointing fingers or saying it was done incorrectly. it was just an
unfortunate thing the way it was drifted. The wind came and pushed
everything east and you know we were caught in the path," Zavalza said.
Twelve people reported symptoms of vomiting, nausea and one person fainted.
The
Kern County Fire Department, Kern County Environmental Health and
Hazmat immediately responded to the area and did a mass
decontamination.
One person was taken to the hospital.
An additional twelve workers did not show signs of any symptoms.
However more than half of the farm workers left before medical aide arrived.
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