Man Affected by Fumes While Cleaning Drain in Pottstown

While cleaning a drain at a residence at the 100 block of Walnut Street in Pottstown on Monday morning a worker was strongly affected by fumes and had to be taken to the hospital, according to The Mercury.

The man, a worker from the Longacre Company in Bally,  was attended to after Goodwill Ambulance and the Pottstown Fire Department left for the scene around 10:30 a.m.

Sources at the scene indicated that the man was affected by cyanide fumes.

According to Jeff Longacre, a Longacre Company owner, he does not know why this happened when the worker was using a drain cleaner.  “We use this stuff every day. It may have reacted with something in the pipes. This is not typical of this stuff.”

Longacre said around 1 p.m. that he was going to visit the worker, and that it seemed that the man would be fine, but still had more tests.