A bizarre fishing boat incident that occurred in waters off the coast of Long Island, NY, on Sunday, resulted in severe chemical burns to one of the crewman who was hospitalized for exposure to mustard gas after his boat fished out World War 1 era munition shells, the Boston Globe reports.
Konstantin Burndshov, the injured crewman from New Jersey aboard the ESS Pursuit, sustained chemical burns and blisters on his arm and leg and was sickened after handling the mustard gas-containing shell that had been hauled aboard the clamming boat among their catch. The crewmen were not immediately aware that the shell contained a dangerous chemical and even fishermen that helped unload the boat 24 hrs later did not know that the boat was contaminated.
Three other crew members were also treated for exposure to mustard gas, and were treated and released in New Bedford, while Burndshov was treated at UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester.
He was diagnosed as suffering from rare mustard gas exposure, according to Edward Boyer, chief of the medical toxicology division at the UMass Memorial Medical Center. So far, there have been only five exposures to mustard gas in the US since WWI, Boyer said. According to him, Burndshov may be the first civilian exposure to the chemical warfare agent in the United States in decades.
This incident spotlights the dangers that decades of military dumping of chemical and outdated weapons and munitions that now litter the ocean floor pose to clamming boats. As boats are becoming more sophisticated and able to reach deeper in the ocean, hidden and forgotten weapons may be brought back to the surface by unaware fishermen.
The Globe reports that in May 2010 workers sorting clams at a New Bedford plant discovered nearly 200 hand grenades.
Sulfur mustard, also known as “mustard gas“, was used in WWI as an agent of chemical. The gas can cause permanent blindness to people who are exposed to it in long stretches of time, as well as respiratory disease and death.
