March 1, 2023 The hospital emergency room was shut down after staff became ill while treating Syracuse fire and EMS personnel and police officers.
By Fernando Alba Source syracuse.com (TNS) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Syracuse, N.Y. — Residents of Brighton Towers, where two men were found dead and an apparent drug exposure hospitalized at least 10 people, were told they can return to their apartments, Syracuse firefighters said Wednesday evening.
The residents of the sixth floor were given the all-clear before 6 p.m. after it was determined it was safe to return, firefighters said in a news release.
Emergency crews were sent to the apartment complex at 10:12 a.m. Wednesday for an apparent emergency. Crews found two men dead and another person critically ill in Apt. 607 in Tower 1, firefighters said.
Several Syracuse police officers waiting at the scene for a medical examiner started to feel ill, firefighters said. Three officers and a firefighter were taken to Upstate University Hospital and were treated for nausea and accelerated heart rates, they said.
The hospital’s Emergency Department was shut down for a little more than two hours after some hospital staff began feeling symptoms, firefighters said.
All told at least 10 people started to feel ill: three officers, a firefighter, two AMR staffers a hospital nurse, a hospital police officer and a hospital clerk as well as the person in the apartment.
The police officers and the firefighter have since been released, firefighters said. The person who they said was critically ill has also been released, they said. News on the others who fell ill was not released.
Firefighters said they have not been able to identify the substance people were exposed to that made them ill. An investigation into what caused the men’s deaths is continuing, they said
Hazmat team members decontaminated the apartment building’s elevators and a contaminated crime scene team cleaned the apartment, firefighters said.