FORT PIERCE — FL — The U.S. Horticultural Research Laboratory has been closed since Friday after an employee became ill and remains hospitalized in intensive care, a spokesperson said Tuesday.
About 130 employees at the facility in the 2000 block of South Rock Road were placed on administrative leave following the closure, said Sandy Miller Hays, spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service agency.
Hays said the employee, whose identity wasn’t disclosed, reported having a headache last Thursday and left about 4 p.m.
On the way home, the employee got progressively ill, and the employee’s spouse took the employee to Lawnwood Regional Medical Center & Heart Institute, Hays said. The employee remains in intensive care there and is gradually improving, Hays said.
The lab was closed on Friday, and an industrial hygienist was contacted to see if anything in the lab could have caused the illness. The ill employee works on research involving alternatives to methyl bromide, a fumigant that’s been used to protect crops for years but could harm the ozone layer, Hays said.
The USDA also hired a business out of Jacksonville, which on Sunday took a variety of air and other samples over a 12 hour period “looking at every conceivable component in the lab.”
A report is expected back Wednesday. If nothing is out of the ordinary then the lab likely could re-open Thursday.
“We need to rule out that the employee’s illness is connected to something in the lab,” Hays said.
Hays said the county health department was notified, and Larry Lee, health department administrator, said there apparently has been no diagnosis.
The research lab includes a Horticulture and Breeding Research Unit, a Subtropical Insects Research Unit and a Subtropical Plant Pathology Research Unit.
