First I would like to thank everyone that has been supporting me on this issue, the chemical is called phenol, it has a life spand in air of about 45 minutes the spill accured around 7:15 I arrived about 7:30 hazmat showed up around 10:30 and they still found traces of it.
So as a 16 (17 – whatever) year driver how many dozens of times have you been instructed how to react to a hazardous spill?
I ask because nowhere in your story (or the article that was linked) did you do it. You never executed step one.
It’d be impossible to know how severe your exposure would have been if you had followed your training, but I suspect what they’re squabbling over now is your preexisting problem that your doctor evidently noted in the article concerning your prior bouts of acute respiratory infections.
That’d also explain why the article notes that ~30 people at the stop were treated but didn’t mention any of them having problems like you are. Evidently they were treated and released and are doing fine.
I suspect you were affected to a greater degree because your lungs were already damaged before your exposure by your acute infections.
Oh – you smoke too. You should probably expect respiratory and circulatory issues in the future.
Since you have plenty of leisure time now you probably ought to google around and learn how to react to hazardous spills AND spills of unknown substances.
I don’t know that you’d ever need that info at UPS – if your condition was accurately depicted in the article and you don’t improve considerably it’s entirely possible you won’t be back.
Hopefully your buddies commiserating with you on this board will view you as an object lesson and take their jobs a little less casually than they do now.
Maybe they’ll actually pay attention and retain some information and react appropriately when they’re in a similar situation.
Nah – they’re Teamsters and know it all.