Nine police officers ‘decontaminated’ in hospital after Belfast incident

By Jonathan McCambridge, PA

Nine police officers were taken to hospital to be “decontaminated” following an incident at a property in south Belfast earlier this week, a senior officer has confirmed.

Assistant Chief Constable Davy Beck told the Policing Board an investigation is under way into substances that were found in the house in Damascus Street.

Police had previously said they attended the property on Tuesday evening following reports of a number of people feeling unwell.

They later said no noxious substance had been detected at the house.

The incident was raised during Thursday’s meeting of the Policing Board, where chairman Mukesh Sharma said it “seemed to be shrouded in mystery”.

Nine of our officers were taken to hospital suffering with respiratory concerns

Mr Beck said: “We got a call after 5pm on the evening of the incident to indicate that Ambulance Service were calling out to a number of people unwell in a house.

“As a result of that four people were eventually taken to hospital in a number of conditions, unresponsive, some required CPR.

“There was quite a significant incident in terms of our response to that, the Ambulance Service response and the ED response to those four people.

“As that was ongoing some of our people felt symptoms of feeling unwell.

“We immediately declared that as a major incident.

“Nine of our officers were taken to hospital suffering with respiratory concerns.”

Mr Beck said the nine officers were “decontaminated” at the Ulster Hospital.

He also said police had put in place protocols around a potential noxious substance incident.

He added: “It did require us to have an exclusion zone.

“Fire Service responded with their specialist equipment and confirmed there were no detections in terms of any noxious equipment.

“After a period of time there was an investigative search of the house.

“What I can say is the four people from the property have recovered well and there is nothing life-threatening in terms of that.

We will take forward an investigation into some substances that were located in the house

“All the officers that were impacted were decontaminated successfully, were under observation for a number of hours and all were released by midnight.

“We will take forward an investigation into some substances that were located in the house.”

Asked about concerns for other people living in the street, the senior officer said: “This was very much in terms of close proximity to the house, to the people involved and some suspicion around potential transmission of substances that may have been in the atmosphere of that house.”

The Northern Ireland Ambulance Service (NIAS) previously said it responded to a  number of 999 calls and had sent four emergency crews to the scene.