Thursday 28 May 2009

Man poisoned on Surrey farm

News is breaking of a man dead and 7 police taken to hospital after being exposed to a 'noxious substance' at Burpham Court Farm, Guildford, Surrey. BBC story here. Reports say the initial call to the emergency services was about a domestic dispute - raising the possibility that this was a deliberate attack with a pesticide of some sort. Nasty.

UPDATE: This report in the Sun suggests it was a suicide. They've illustrated it with a product shot of Phostoxin, a particularly nasty chemical used to fumigate crop stores, and as a rat poison. It's actually Aluminium Phosphide (MSDS here [pdf]) which on contact with water releases Phosgene, a gas notoriously used as a chemical weapon in World War I, and more recently by Iran in the Iran-Iraq war in 1987.

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