Mysterious vapor cloud makes senior citizens sick in Commerce City

COMMERCE CITY, Colo.—Authorities are trying to locate the source of a mysterious vapor cloud that made a group of senior citizens sick.
The group was about to board a bus at a recreation center on Sunday to go listen to children sing Christmas carols when they started choking.

Commerce City police commander Dennis Moon tells KUSA-TV (/kkgud3e) the vapor cloud was gone by the time emergency teams arrived.

No serious injuries were reported, but some people still felt sick on Monday.

Mysterious vapor cloud makes senior citizens sick in Commerce City

This small filler side story caught my eye this morning...
this senior center is in Commerce City, mostly industrial true but near the center itself there are no factory's or manufacturing going on close by...

On Sunday it was breezy in the Denver Metro so whatever this toxic cloud was had to be heavy enough to stay near the ground and not be dispersed by the light wind...

like the rest of you I have no idea what it could be...

but it does make me think about canary's in a coal mine ... Or... what will happen, when and if we see this vapor again?

reply to post by HardCorps


Who witnessed this "vapor cloud?"

reply to post by DJW001


The victims, bus driver and attendants...

She spoke exclusively to 9NEWS about the ordeal.

"It was horrible! Just plain horrible," Mary said."We were just all ready to go listen to the children sing."

As the group walked out the doors of the rec center, they walked into what police describe as an invisible vapor cloud.

"That's when I swallowed whatever it was and immediately I started choking, coughing, vomiting," Mary said.

More detail can be found here

reply to post by HardCorps


I immediately suspected the 'testing' of agents perhaps tailored to affect certain age groups, via genetic selection or somesuch chicanery. Perhaps affecting people whose telomeres are reduced by a certain amount.

It would be intriguing to know whether only older people got sick - what of the staff and driver? There have of course been chemical weapons tests on the populace before. A chemical agent that eliminates 'dead weight' from the population? That would be useful to a diabolical dictator who only wanted a young, strong labour force.

ETA - if the driver and other staff got sick, then Heaven only knows what it could have been. If the effects were so minor, it can't have been a weapon of any sort (unless it was a low density exposure).

reply to post by HardCorps


My office is 1 mile from Commerce City in the manufacturing district of North Denver (48th Ave and Holly St.)

I don't work on Sunday, so I was unable to verify the claim, but I know there are a ton of oil and natural gas refineries in the immediate area, could a natural gas leak (without the additive in it to cause the rotten egg smell) cause this phenomenon?

Like the canaries in a mine metaphor?

God Bless,

reply to post by ElohimJD


This all happened not far from you
over on 60th and Monaco...
that rotten egg smell is H2s a poison gas...
If you can smell 'Rotten Egg' then the concentrations of gas are safe...
odd thing about H2s though is when it's strong enough to hurt the first effect of the gas is to destroy your sense of smell...

reply to post by HardCorps


Right.

13 blocks from my building to be exact.

I'll keep an eye out to the North and see if any "haze" or "mist" becomes visible.

There are also plastic manufacturers in the area, maybe one of the facilities had issues. Interesting report though.

God Bless,

Should be easy enough to check the wind directions and work backwards. Even if it's an industrial area, only some of those companies would deal in something toxic, right? Lots of companies like to release toxic crap on weekends when it might be less noticeable. Could have been some sort of one time accidental release also.

Most likely no one will care until half the town drops dead, like bison stuck in a sulphur and methane release at Yellowstone.

reply to post by ElohimJD


If you do see anything... like people dropping in their tracks... Give me a call
you can ride up to Wolf-Creak with me and we'll spend the day sipping hot coco and checking out the snow bunnies while Armageddon meets Denver...

reply to post by signalfire


We both know that big buildings do create their own wind eddies currents up and down flows...
perhaps there was a dead air space near the door that allowed this... whatever... to gather... but once the doors opened that dead air space was broken but not before the people got a lung full....

Don't quote me on that... just making an educated guess is all

They can't blame that one on me. I have had some bad smelling gas lately but I have been nowhere near there.

reply to post by rickymouse


Shakes head and mutters...
Ricky, Ricky, Ricky...
Sorry bud but no one here is stupid enough to pull your finger...

HardCorps
reply to post by DJW001

 

The victims, bus driver and attendants...

She spoke exclusively to 9NEWS about the ordeal.

"It was horrible! Just plain horrible," Mary said."We were just all ready to go listen to the children sing."

As the group walked out the doors of the rec center, they walked into what police describe as an invisible vapor cloud.

"That's when I swallowed whatever it was and immediately I started choking, coughing, vomiting," Mary said.

More detail can be found here

"Invisible vapor cloud".
So nobody saw anything.
People get sick, it happens. We can't go around blaming invisible vapor clouds for some sick elderly folk.

Coughing, choking, & vomiting, huh? Back when I was in my 20's, a friend of mine told me about a prank he would pull using a small personal protection canister of tear gas. He would wait outside a public building until no one was looking, hold his breath, & spray a cloud of tear gas up in the air as he walked away. As long as he stayed ahead of the spray & held his breath long enough, he said, the gas wouldn't hurt him.

He would then double back across the street & wait for people to come out of the building, walk into the tear gas cloud, & go into fits of coughing & choking. IMO, it's a possible explanation for this "invisible vapor cloud".

reply to post by DJW001


Apparently it was an invisible vapor cloud..so no one really witnessed it.

reply to post by HardCorps

The victims, bus driver and attendants...

Can you show me where it says the driver and attendants witnessed this invisible cloud?

reply to post by HardCorps

The victims, bus driver and attendants...

That is not what the newspaper account says. It is the police who described a "vapor cloud," although the police also say that this cloud was not there when the first responders arrived. Once again, what reason is there to believe that there was any sort of vapor cloud? The elderly people reported choking and other such symptoms, but they do not seem to know what caused these symptoms. The "vapor cloud" is a theory on the part of someone who was not there.

smells like a gas leak to me

how do we know it might have been some really foul flatus?

HardCorps
reply to post by ElohimJD

 

This all happened not far from you
over on 60th and Monaco...
that rotten egg smell is H2s a poison gas...
If you can smell 'Rotten Egg' then the concentrations of gas are safe...
odd thing about H2s though is when it's strong enough to hurt the first effect of the gas is to destroy your sense of smell...

The added smell in nat gas is a thiol compound. Unless the gas is raw from a well with H2S then H2S would have been removed by processing.