PNE employee taken to hospital after drinking poisoned water

A PNE employee became ill and was taken to hospital Thursday after buying and drinking a bottle of Dasani water at Hunky Bill's and Barnacle Bill's concession stand. Authorities are investigating.

A Pacific National Exhibition employee was taken to hospital Thursday night after buying and drinking a bottle of water at the fair poisoned with what is thought to be ammonium chloride.

Just after 11 p.m., the PNE employee experienced dizziness and muscle weakness and was taken to hospital 30 minutes after drinking a bottle of water from Hunky Bill's & Barnacle Bill's concession stand inside the fair, Vancouver police spokeswoman Const. Jana McGuinness said in a press release.

Upon later inspection, it was apparent that the bottle of Dasani water contained small holes where a syringe had apparently been inserted and the chemical injected in what PNE spokeswoman Laura Ballance called a single isolated incident.

The Vancouver police department is investigating the incident and, according to Vancouver Coastal Health spokeswoman Anna Marie D'Angelo, there have been no other reports of similar illnesses to Vancouver Coastal Health.

"Thousands of bottles of this type of water were sold at the PNE yesterday with no other reports of illness and Vancouver Coastal Health is supporting the Canadian Food Inspection Agency in their investigation," D'Angelo said.

Ammonium chloride is a chemical irritant that, when ingested, can cause nausea, vomiting and sore throat, according to the International Programme on Chemical Safety.

D'Angelo said the employee was released from hospital shortly after being admitted and is expected to make a full recovery.

Ballance said PNE staff inspected their entire inventory of 30,000 bottles of Dasani water Friday and did not find any further problems.

VPD investigators inspected every bottle of water in the Hunky Bill's concession stand and the stand had reopened Friday, McGuinness said. She added that the water bottle in question had been delivered to the concession stand early Thursday morning.

"The health department went through the whole inventory," said Mark Konyk, manager of Hunky Bill's & Barnacle Bill's. "Between Coke [the makers of Dasani] and the PNE, they took it all out and they got us product back in so we're all good to go."

It remains unclear at what point the tainted bottle was injected with the chemical, Ballance said.

Mark Clarke, a spokesman for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, said Friday that CFIA inspectors were at the fair trying to determine where in the water's processing and distribution stage it became tainted.

Clarke said that if the water was tainted in the manufacturing stage, the investigation would be solely in the CFIA's jurisdiction, but if it was determined that the poisoning happened post-production, then the VPD would take the lead on the investigation.

"We're not a hundred per cent sure if somebody sabotaged the bottle or if this was something that happened at the plant," said Clarke. "Right now it's looking like it was sabotaged, but we just have to do our due diligence to be sure."

The VPD was still testing the substance in the bottle Friday and gathering forensic evidence from the outside of the bottle, McGuinness said.