After his girlfriend's black Lab mix got fleas from a visiting pooch, Jim Avent set off eight bug bombs in various rooms of her sprawling house in Woodinville.
Dashing for the open sliding-glass door, Avent was partway across the kitchen when he was overcome by the fumes.
He fell to the ground and strained to drag himself to the threshold.
"I was hanging halfway in the house, halfway out of the house, gagging," Avent said. "I couldn't move. I couldn't sit up. I couldn't talk."
He yanked a cord to make the phone fall to the floor and managed to press 911.
"911. What's the emergency?" he heard.
Avent could make only incoherent sounds.
"What's the address?" the 911 operator asked.
"That's the last thing I remember," Avent recalled recently. "I don't remember the ambulance ride, but I do remember them cutting my clothes off and scrubbing me down."
After a night in intensive care, Avent went home. Later, with a broken toe, he went to the same hospital, where emergency room workers said they were surprised to see him back -- alive.
Avent's story is an example of a number of cases in which Americans have been sickened by bug bombs -- the foggers that permeate a room, or an entire building, with pesticides.
Last year, the number of such incidents reported in Washington doubled. Washington was also the site of the death of a baby classified as suspicious -- a 10-month-old girl in Spokane County died after sleeping on the floor of an apartment where three times as many foggers as needed had been used.
Last month, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a study the agency says is the first look at pesticide poisoning incidents related to bug bombs. Using the records of eight states where such incidents are tracked most carefully, including Washington, they documented 466 cases of injuries or illness from 2001 to 2006.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency responded this month by launching an effort to re-examine bug bombs' labels and packaging.
The agency is also trying to figure out how to make consumers more aware of the need to read directions carefully.
New York officials reacted by announcing the state would take bug bombs out of consumers' hands, allowing only licensed pesticide applicators to use them. Industry objected.
This week, after agency officials met with industry representatives, an agency spokeswoman said officials are trying to "assess what we need to do" and "there's been no final" decision.
Full Story: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/388404_bugbomb19.html
