Firefighters and police converge around Amish Market Tuesday morning after more than 30 people were sickened by carbon monoxide and a suspicious package had first been considered a possible cause. Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib
Thirty-two people were sickened Tuesday morning by high levels of carbon monoxide leaked from a defective boiler in the basement of the Amish Market at 60 Murray St., Fire Department officials said. Two victims were taken to hospitals while the others were treated at the scene, according to a Fire Department spokewoman. None of the injuries, she said, were lifethreatening.
CO levels were so high that they “maxed out” Fire Department meters, “which will render you unconscious very, very quickly,” FDNY Chief of Department James Leonard told reporters.
Emergency workers arrived to find “people were passed out in the first floor and the basement” of the store, Leonard said.
Andrew Arnot, 31, who lives above Amish Market at 53 Park Pl., a building connected to 60 Murray through the basement, said he could smell gas in his apartment. “I opened the windows and I could smell it a bunch more,” he said. The Fire Department evacuated Arnot’s building, as well as 12-story 60 Murray Street.
Along with firefighters, anti-terror and other cops descended on the area when it was first reported that the injuries may have been caused by the contents of a box opened in the Amish Market basement. Leonard said a worker had just opened the box, containing salad bowls, when a woman about 10 feet away passed out. That led the worker to suspect that the contents of the box may be dangerous.
“We went in, we located the package, bomb squad and emergency services identified the package that it was no hazard in that package,” Leonard said.