Toxic chemical fumes send 29 to the hospital

Thursday, February 17th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

GROVE, Okla. (AP) -- Sixteen people who were exposed to toxic chemical fumes from a methamphetamine lab in a downtown motel were released from the hospital Wednesday, officials said. The 16 were among 29 people, including four police officers, who were exposed Tuesday, Debbie Gallier, a spokeswoman for Integris Grove Hospital, said.

Those kept overnight for observation received chest X-rays, breathing treatments, 20-minute showers, lab work, fluids and medication for their symptoms from the fumes. "We called in extra personnel to help with the emergency," Gallier said. "We've never had to deal with this kind of a disaster. The worst people injured were the two people that were arrested."

Those two people, 25-year-old Jason Poulin of Kiefer and Rita Mullina, 48, of Tulsa, were taken into custody on complaints of manufacturing methamphetamine and possession of marijuana as they tried to flee from a room at the Best Western Timber Ridge Inn ,police said. Both are in the Delaware County Jail, authorities said. Charges have not yet been filed.

A janitor was making a routine check of the second-story hallway when he thought he smelled smoke, motel manager Lou Ann Ford said. When Ford arrived on the second floor, she could see a haze consuming the corridor. "We knocked on every door and checked all the unoccupied rooms for a possible fire, but there wasn't one," she said. "The only room occupied was the one where the smell was coming from, so I knocked on the door of Room 205 and a male voice said they'd be right out."

Ford said she suspected methamphetamine cooking because an odor of plastic, not smoke from a fire, was what she smelled. She left to call police and then returned as Poulin and Mullina were leaving. She said they told her they were "checking out."

Ford said she tried to open the door, but a bedspread was hanging over the doorway and fumes were billowing from the room. Officers stopped the pair on the stairway as they were trying to leave. They found the lab and some marijuana in the room. A vial of chemicals in the room broke and vapors spread down to the first floor of the motel.

Among the 29 people who were treated were four police officers, four motel employees and several firefighters. The motel was shut down for two hours while Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation officers checked the area for toxic fumes and seized the lab, authorities said.