A pool maintenance worker has been taken to hospital and classrooms have been evacuated following a chemical leak at a high school in Perth’s southern suburbs on Monday.
The emergency was triggered about 9am when the cleaning contractor breathed in a “small lung full” of liquid chlorine that spilled as he worked inside the pool room at Melville Senior High School.
Two firefighting trucks and a specialist vehicle for dealing with hazardous materials were sent to the school.
“We could smell it from approximately 20m or 30m away, so we pulled back to a safer distance and then we set up with our breathing gear and detectors to assess the scene before sending crews in,” Murdoch Fire Station officer Joel Manning said.
Manning said crews didn’t know exactly what they were dealing with at first but have since been able to quell the danger.
St John Ambulance paramedics took the contractor, a man aged in his 60s, to Fiona Stanley Hospital.
His injuries are not believed to be serious.
Two nearby classrooms were evacuated as a precautionary measure, and the area was cordoned off.
No students were involved in the incident.
Source: 7News
