Something seems wrong here, what do you think?

I put this in Grey Area because it might be nothing but my gut says otherwise.
According to the Boston Globe a graduate student at Boston University committed suicide Monday night by ingesting a dangerous chemical quoted in the story as being sodium azide. Twelve people in the apartment building were evacuated, hazmat crews covered head to toe were sent inside and four police officers and an ambulance crew were sent to the hospital. If you read the the first article posted about 3 or four hours into the incident it's pretty clear they know what the chemical was and since it's not a common household item they must have done a little research.
www.boston.com... WwHXzJ9TK/index.html
On the right is a link to an update on the story, and here is where it gets weird. It seems eight hours after the first story that clearly involves hazmat and identifies the chemica,l the entire story changes.....
www.boston.com... l
This quote in particular seems to be an attempt at covering something up.........
"Fire officials said they could not determine the chemical she ingested because they did not find any toxic materials inside the apartment at 676 Massachusetts Ave"
So what happened? How did we go from a situation where a certain chemical was identified and deemed so dangerous it caused the evacuation of an entire building to "did not find any toxic materials in the apartment"?
What do you think?

reply to post by Trublbrwing


op, your analysis sounds interesting. but when i click on either webpages you provide, it says they no longer exist.

reply to post by Lawgiver


They don't want to start a panic.

Here try this link

Hmm go on yahoo, won't work here.

Search:
Police officers, ambulance crew taken to hospital after toxic suicide in South End

Woman who died in apparent chemical suicide in South End was Boston University researcher

I think the link is too long in the post. I used the quote button, and cut ant pasted it into my browser and it went to the right place. Try This one.

It appears the Sodium Azide can metabolize into a cyanide, and that is probably the reason for the extreme caution. Cyanide is dangerous at the slightest touch, and if they knew she had cyanide poisoning, but didn't know where it came from then they would use extreme caution.

The people taken to the hospital didn't show any signs of symptoms.

It seems this was just a case of extreme caution, and after all the factors were known it wasn't a big deal, except for the suicide.

Now, on a more conspiratorial note, I am suspicious anytime a "researcher" commits suicide, especially if it is done in a manner like this one. Was it really suicide?

I looked up sodium azide. It's used in car airbags. Wonder if she was in an accident and her airbag deployed. I couldn't tell how much is needed or how long it takes to cause death. Possible cover up to avoid litigation?

have not posted in a while but a search turned up this
www.ehs.neu.edu...
strange that its the same uni/town

You know this sort of reminds me of "Quarantine" the movie.

The woman, who was a grad student and Ph.D candidate in pharmacology at Boston University, was taken to Boston Medical Center, where she died.

boston.cbslocal.com...

BU said that there were no signs that the chemicals were taken from the school.

Thats strange, so where did she get the chemicals from if not the school?

Seems a little spooky and an extravagant way to commit suicide.

Why would she put so many other people at risk?

Seems like it would be easier to jump out a window or off of the roof of a building. Take a bunch of sleeping pills. Slit your wrists. Blow your brains out..... a lot of easier ways to commit suicide.

reply to post by getreadyalready

That's where it gets weird, apparently something similar occurred last year in Boston.
I would agree about them just being cautious if they had said "unidentified" cause or chemical in the first article but it seems they were pretty sure what they were dealing with.

Originally posted by cavalryscout
Seems a little spooky and an extravagant way to commit suicide.

Why would she put so many other people at risk?

Seems like it would be easier to jump out a window or off of the roof of a building. Take a bunch of sleeping pills. Slit your wrists. Blow your brains out..... a lot of easier ways to commit suicide.

Right. I looked at a few sites and this is a chemical that would be way on the bottom of my list of methods, painful, slow and nasty.

OMG . This sounds like a story line from the TV show Fringe . That too was set in boston .
These are scarey times we live in .

I have an app on my phone called "disaster events", it's a great app, I highly recommend it. one of the categories is a Top Stories list, and this story was there, listed as a HAZMAT event. I read about this event and thought the exact same thing you did, OP. it was really really strange.

That news video looks just like REC/Quarantine... Wierd to think somebody ALREADY EXCEPTED into pharmacy school would kill herself, I mean I know there's tons of pressure but it's harder to get in grad school why would she want to do it. Sh*t they should lemme take her place... LoL But what's also wierd is that their little fake/pharmacy/compounding lab wasn't missing said chemical...

Originally posted by getreadyalready
I think the link is too long in the post. I used the quote button, and cut ant pasted it into my browser and it went to the right place. Try This one.

It appears the Sodium Azide can metabolize into a cyanide, and that is probably the reason for the extreme caution. Cyanide is dangerous at the slightest touch, and if they knew she had cyanide poisoning, but didn't know where it came from then they would use extreme caution.

The people taken to the hospital didn't show any signs of symptoms.

It seems this was just a case of extreme caution, and after all the factors were known it wasn't a big deal, except for the suicide.

Now, on a more conspiratorial note, I am suspicious anytime a "researcher" commits suicide, especially if it is done in a manner like this one. Was it really suicide?

edit on 10-4-2012 by getreadyalready because: (no reason given)

I wonder what she was researching when she apparently committed this suicide. Anyone have a link for info on her and what she taught? A list of her colleagues to contact would come in handy as well.

Originally posted by Trublbrwing
reply to post by getreadyalready

 

That's where it gets weird, apparently something similar occurred last year in Boston.
I would agree about them just being cautious if they had said "unidentified" cause or chemical in the first article but it seems they were pretty sure what they were dealing with.

Interesting that something similar occurred last year. Maybe Boston has a serial killer and that is reason for the story confusion. The one that happened last year, where did it happen in relation to this new one?

Reminds me of a local case reported here probably near a decade ago. A guy came home from the pub as normal, went to bed with his wife but when she awoke in the morning he was lying in bed sadly dead. A toxicology report showed that his body had something like 100 times the normal levels of something in his body, it may have been penecillin (sp) I'm not sure - I've never been able to locate the article again, despite the fact it should be archived. But somehow a lethal substance got into this guy, presumably whilst asleep in bed...all I can say is, WTF. Same as your story. WTF!!

reply to post by Lawgiver

Wait for the knock at the door. You will be informed you know nothing!

I don't know, she looks to happy to want to kill herself. She had a lot going for her. Very pretty young lady. RIP

Update:

Carolyn Brown
Program: Ph.D. Biomolecular Pharmacology
Advisor: Douglas Rosene, Ph.D., Professor of Anatomy and Neurobiology



Image credit: Off Yahoo.
www.bumc.bu.edu...

articles.boston.com...

Maria Ober, a spokeswoman for the BU Medical Campus, said Brown worked at a biomedical lab and researched the effects of aging on the brain.

Brown’s death follows at least three similar incidents in Eastern Massachusetts.

A Brighton woman in her 70s died in March 2011 in an apparent suicide after ingesting cyanide, and a Northeastern University researcher died in her Milford home the previous September after drinking orange juice mixed with sodium cyanide.

Last May, a Somerville man died about a week after he was found in his home behind a bathroom door with a note attached that warned of poisonous gas.

Any updates to the story?

I would think with missing cyanide not being accounted for that this would have been a bigger story.

Was Boston University covering its own hiney with not fessing up to it being missing and if this isn't the case, are the authorities still looking into its origins?

I have to say I am shocked how easy it is for people to walk out of research labs with unaccounted for chemicals.