Liquid nitrogen leak at Georgia poultry plant kills 6 

Being from Gainesville Georgia. This hit our community hard. Rest in peace to all those who lost their lives.

Most of the victims probably died being a hero who went to the rescue. The six victims died instantly without knowing what happened to them. As a chemical engineer working at DuPont, we had a contractor who switched an air mask line connector to a nitrogen line thinking it could be used for his breathing mask. Just putting on the mask with the gas nitrogen valve open and breathing the nitrogen instantly killed him. He could not even take two steps...just blanked out. The human body can not detect nitrogen when it is a high percentage in the air. It is not like carbon dioxide. If you hold your breath too long, carbon dioxide will build up. Your body detects the acidity in the blood and tells the brain to breath faster but this did not happen with nitrogen. Even if the liquid nitrogen was sprayed in the face in a closed area, the nitrogen instantly asphyxiates the victim. The liquid nitrogen is normally sprayed directly on the chicken parts to quick freeze the parts. Someone can open the quick freeze chamber without knowing the spray nozzle was defective and get a blast of liquid nitrogen. The liquid nitrogen exposure is not like freezing the bad guy in the Terminator movie. A review of the safety procedures by OSHA will probably show that they did not have a oxygen analyzer in the area and no back-up analyzer to cross check and calibrate their units. STIFF OSHA PENALTIES! Just opening a freeze chamber door and placing your hand in a nitrogen purged container constitutes "breaking the plane" and "vessel entry" requiring vessel entry permit and an oxygen analyzer. This tragedy can also happen if a mechanic accidentally opened an liquid nitrogen pipe line that had no NITROGEN Label on the pressurized line. For shut off and isolating a leaking line, the chicken nugget processing plant probably did not have "block and bleed" valving to isolate the line. The responding fire fighter had no way of knowing where the shut off valve is and whether it had a pressure relief valve (Lesson: Never enter a chemical fume area without a scott pack). Another possibility, the chicken processing plant never conducted a process hazards review and probably did not calculate the maximum pressure that the pipe line can hold if the pipe heats up. My prayers are with the families. It is a tragedy but the 6 who died from nitrogen exposure suffocated and their brain did not even know it,. Sadly, instant death, so it was a peaceful death. If the other employees walked out of the processing plant, there is no way they had residual effects that could reach them, They should be OK. The white cloud is water humidity condensing in the air, most of the liquid nitrogen falls across the floor and boils off as dancing droplets across the warm floor. The most difficult challenge in saving a fellow worker is knowing that without a Scott pack and air tank, NO ONE can enter the area for a rescue!! Not even holding your breath works!

Chaos is a mild term. The horror between the victims is something you cant make up.

Man, condolences for the families that lost someone.

If you look in the OSHA database, you'll see entries for all three entities involved: Prime-Pak Foods, Inc., Victory Processing, Inc. and Foundation Food Group. Businesses generally could care less whether you live or die (or are mangled by machinery).

South Africa. Does Australia have a strain? Nitogen. That stuff is crazy.

Omg I pray that everyone is okay in Jesus name Amen. 🙏🙏🙏🙏

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They deserved this for eating meet