Children treated after playing with mercury

Heather Rawlyk and Ed Koch

Wednesday, April 21, 2004 | 11:01 a.m.

Elementary mercury is a silver liquid.

Inhaling high concentrations of mercury vapor can lead to shortness of breath, cough, fever, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, inflammation of the lining of the mouth, excess saliva and a metallic taste in the mouth. Mercury is also a skin irritant and can cause allergic skin rashes.

Source: Occupational Safety and Health Administration

Federal and county health officials today were investigating a mercury spill at a Northwest Las Vegas apartment that sent a family of six to a hospital and potentially contaminated a bus stop and one room of a junior high school.

Clark County Health District officials, however, say they believe they intervened quick enough in the Tuesday night incident to avoid saturation of the toxic material into the apartment and school.

"Exposure was minimal," Dave Tonelli, the health district's spokesman, said. "No one has shown symptoms of mercury poisoning and we do not expect them to."

Authorities first found the mercury spill at the Eagle Crest Apartments, 5900 Sky Point Drive, near Ann Road and Tenaya Way. A woman returned to her second-story apartment at about 5 p.m. to find her four children, ages 11 to 16, had been playing with a quart of mercury, Las Vegas Fire Department spokesman Tim Syzmanski said.

The woman immediately contacted the Las Vegas Fire Department, he said.

It is the second time this year that children playing with mercury has resulted in people being treated at hospitals and an EPA investigation.

Authorities today also were assessing the amount of cleanup required at a neighborhood school bus stop and a science lab at Lied Middle School near Decatur Boulevard and West Ann Road, EPA spokesman Mark Merchant said.

The school remained open except for the one classroom, authorities said.

Mercury is a naturally occurring element that is found practically everywhere in small, non-toxic amounts. However, it can be deadly when concentrated and released in a confined area, coupled with prolonged exposure.

The occupants of the apartment, including two parents and the four children, were taken to a vacant apartment where they showered and were dressed in paper gowns as a safety precaution.

The family then was taken to University Medical Center as a safety requirement, Syzmanski said. The family did not appear to have any symptoms of mercury poisoning, he said. Authorities did not release their names.

A UMC spokeswoman today said information on conditions or whether any members of the family were admitted, was not immediately available for release.

Lucy Ordway, manager of the 624-unit Eagle Crest Apartments, said she believes the family is OK because they returned early today to try to get back into the apartment and get some clothes so the children could go to school. However, she said, she could not let them in because the EPA was doing its assessment.

"They have lived here three or four years and they have been excellent tenants," Ordway said, noting that the family is staying with relatives while their three-bedroom apartment is being decontaminated. She too declined to release their names.

"I was totally shocked about the mercury," Ordway said. "We have never had anything like this happen before."

Syzmanski said the mercury had been inside the apartment for less than 18 hours.

"We think the kids brought the mercury home sometime last (Monday) night," he said. "They had been at their grandparents' house and found the mercury in the garage and brought it home."

The children admitted that they had been playing with the mercury -- sticking a quarter inside to see what it would do, for example, Syzmanski said.

"They were curious," he said. "Kids are fascinated by mercury and by its properties. They were basically experimenting with it."

Mercury in liquified form beads up and is similar to the oozing silvery substance popularized in the "Terminator" movies.

The Las Vegas Fire Department and its hazardous materials unit cordoned off the the scene at the apartment complex until locally-based EPA investigators arrived at 8 p.m. with sophisticated detection equipment to assess the situation.

Merchant said preliminary findings are that one of the children, a girl, had played with a small amount of the mercury and had "spread it around parts of the apartment."

"She took it to school and spread it around a bus stop," Merchant said. "There is visible mercury at the bus stop."

"Our environmental response team checked out the school but did not find any levels of concern," he said.

Clark County School District spokeswoman Mary Stanley-Larsen said school officials have talked to students who took the school bus at the bus stop near the Eagle Crest Apartments and told them to go to their doctors to be checked for mercury exposure.

She confirmed that while the EPA found no contamination at the Lied school science lab it will be closed and "swabbed" today as a precaution.

"We are erring on the side of safety," she said, noting that students who were to have had science lab classes today instead were to report to the computer lab.

Merchant said levels of mercury in the apartment were "higher than background levels," requiring some cleanup, but the exact amount of contamination is yet to be determined, by EPA officials coming from San Francisco.

Merchant said if the owner of the apartment complex can demonstrate the site will be properly cleaned up, the EPA will oversee that operation but will not spend federal dollars to clean up the private property.

Woodrow Wilson, who lives in an apartment adjacent to the contaminated one, sat patiently last night, waiting to learn when he could return to his apartment.

"This scares me with everything else that has gone on recently with the young boy and the mercury," he said, referring to a highly publicized case from earlier this year. "It's scary to be nearby. I didn't think this would happen here so close."

Wilson was referring to the Jan. 10 contamination of a home in the 1400 block of Saylor Way near Vegas Drive and Jones Boulevard that cost EPA officials $175,000 to clean up. EPA officials said the agency covered the cost of the cleanup in that case because the contamination posed an immediate danger to the public and the family did not have the money to pay for it.

In that case, 17-year-old Michael Coleman and the family dog became sick after playing with and consuming some of the mercury. Coleman was hospitalized and suffered dizziness and other mercury poisoning symptoms for months after the incident. The dog, which underwent veterinary care, also recovered.

The EPA found high levels of mercury in the house and yard, resulting in 80 yards of contaminated materials -- including the backyard swimming pool and 8,000 gallons of mercury-contaminated water -- being collected and hauled to the hazardous waste landfill at Beatty.

The Clark County Health District and EPA crews also had to rip out all of the toilets, showers, bathtub, carpeting, the washing machine and much of the other contents in the home.

Attempts to reach Coleman's family today for comment on Tuesday's incident and for updates on Coleman's recovery at their last known phone number and through a relative were not successful.

Coleman had told investigators he got the mercury from a bottle that was with mining equipment that his uncle, a one-time gold prospector who had been living with the family, left behind when he moved to California.

On Tuesday, Letrice Simons, who lives near the contaminated apartment, returned home from work to find two fire trucks parked in front of her building.

"I saw some paramedics and the fire trucks and thought my apartment was on fire," she said. "It's scary. My daughter plays with those kids sometimes, but she knows not to play with mercury. She learned it in school."

Simons' daughter, 11-year-old Jazmine, said she had just learned about the dangers of mercury in her science class at Cadwalader Middle School.

"About three weeks ago my science teacher taught us not to use mercury," she said.

Jazmine Simons said she thought the children who were playing with the mercury were "old enough to know not to play with mercury."

"Some of the kids are older and they know what it is, she said. "They should know not to play with it. My teacher taught us that it puts people around them in danger too so they shouldn't have played with it."

When asked what she would do if she came across mercury, Jazmine Simons said she would "run away as fast as I can."

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