
On Friday, January 24, the Coil Shop was evacuated due to a strong chemical smell that was causing team members to have symptoms of dizziness, nausea, and difficulty breathing.
All of the doors were opened to ventilate the shop. The covers were removed from the fans outside (Big thank you to our Maintenance Team for getting this done quickly!).
The mineral spirits that had been added to the expanding table at the end of the shift yesterday were pumped back into the metal drums and sealed. Odorless mineral spirits were put back into the table.
Upon investigation, we discovered that the drum of mineral spirits that was pumped into the expanding table was regular mineral spirits, but it had conflicting labels on the drum.

One of the labels said "Odorless Mineral Spirits" which is the chemical that we normally use. The other label said "Mineral Spirits" which is what the drum actually contained. We have contacted our vendor, who acknowledged that the conflicting labels were not caught at their warehouse when the drum arrived from the manufacturer.
Only 2 coils were expanded using the regular mineral spirits. We are making sure that there is no excess mineral spirits in these coils before they continue through production.
Some team members were still experiencing some headaches a few hours after the exposure. However, most of them have recovered. There should not be any long-term exposure effects for team members.
If you have concerns, please contact the Kinsey Donner.
Lessons learned:
Report any strong chemical odors to your Supervisor or Lead immediately
The Coil Shop Leadership responded quickly so that we could get the issue resolved! Thank you to everyone involved!
Read chemical labels
This drum had conflicting labels which should have been a red flag to our vendor
Chemical labels must be legible
Read SDS sheets for chemicals in your area
SDS Sheets can be found on the RAEPoint Safety site and are organized by the chemical name
The SDS for mineral spirits are attached below!

Kinsey Donner, CSP
EHS Manager
(918) 861-9539
Comments