SCARBOROUGH, Maine — A hazardous chemical spill at an industrial cleaning business in Scarborough has sent three people to the hospital.
Emergency dispatchers say firefighters and ambulance crews from several towns converged on QuantumClean after the spill happened around 4:30 p.m. Sunday.
Officials say the three people taken to the hospital are expected to be OK.
Deputy Fire Chief Tony Attardo told The Portland Press Herald that the workers were doing routine industrial cleaning when a mix of acids and water produced a vapor that made them feel ill. The vapor was contained in one room.
QuantumClean says on its website that it provides cleaning services for several different industries, including semiconductors, nanotechnology and aerospace.
Semiconductor “cleaning” involves very nasty chemicals. Mixing certain of them can be highly dangerous. It’s bad enough if people had trouble breathing. Some of that stuff can explode or start fire, or both.