Carbon monoxide poisoning from faulty forklift sickens 9 workers
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- Faulty forklift valve released carbon monoxide, sickening nine workers at plant
- Firefighters measured 258 ppm in freezer and 70 ppm on the floor; alarms at 20 ppm
- 20 workers were outside when firefighters arrived; five hospitalized
A faulty valve on a forklift led to nine workers suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning at a packaging plant southeast of Pasco.
The forklift driver was moving frozen hash browns at the Basin Ag Solutions custom packing and cold storage facility near Burbank, when he began feeling sick about 3 p.m. Tuesday, Walla Walla Fire District Chief Mike Wickstrom told the Tri-City Herald.
The worker told a manager he wasn’t feeling well, so he went outside and laid down. The manager was taking care of him as more employees reported headaches and other symptoms, the chief said. So the business called the fire department.
When firefighters arrived, about 20 workers were outside the building, nine of them with symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning, Wickstrom said. Of those, five were taken to a local hospital.
When firefighters went inside, they discovered high levels of carbon monoxide.
Normally alarms sound when there are 20 parts per million (ppm) in the air. Measurements showed 258 ppm in the freezer area, and 70 on the floor. It’s unclear if the packaging plant had an alarm.
One of the patients had 28 ppm, Wickstrom said.
Carbon monoxide is an invisible gas that is produced by burning propane to operate a forklift. When people start breathing it, it can replace the oxygen in your blood. That can lead to serious tissue damage or death.
Everyone is expected to recover, Wickstrom said.
Some common symptoms include headache, dizziness, confusion and blurred vision.
Because of the low temperatures in the building, it took a while for firefighters to clear out the dense gas, Wickstrom said. But they were able to ventilate the building.
Carbon monoxide leaks are rare. Wickstrom said he’s only seen a handful of cases in the past 30 years.
“It was a really good outcome because the company managers recognized the problem and dealt with it correctly,” he said.
An initial Herald story on Tuesday gave the wrong company where the incident happened. The problem was not at Tri-Cities Intermodal, in the former Railex hub building on the same road.
This story was originally published January 14, 2026 at 12:48 PM.