What is being called “Suicide by HazMat” is changing how police officers and other first responders investigate reports of unknown or strange fatalities and even routine calls.  Recently, in Jefferson County, Colorado, a routine “welfare” check at a motel included a Bomb Squad and HazMat Team.  Thirty-two guests at the motel were evacuated when the HazMat Team entered one of the rooms and noticed a pungent sulfur-like odor.  The occupant of the room was found dead; the source of the odor has not yet been identified.
In Bloomington, Indiana, the Fire Department HazMat Unit was called in as a precaution when a dead body was discovered inside a home.  Police officers and the coroner waited outside the home until the HazMat Team declared that it was safe to enter. When Amherst, Massachusetts, police arrived at a scene to investigate a body inside a parked car, they called in the local HazMat Team to assist.  A strange odor inside the car was identified as hydrogen sulfide.  It had been made by the suicide victim who mixed together two common household chemicals. This was the first known case of suicide by hydrogen sulfide in the state.
Suicides by HazMat have become a growing problem in U.S.  So far, just this year more than 25 incidents of suicide from mixing chemicals to produce a toxic gas have been reported.  Instructions for chemical suicides can be found on the internet providing explicit instructions on how to make and generate hydrogen sulfide gas and other toxic gases.
In most of these cases, suicide victims have used make-shift warning signs taped on car windows or on the front door in an effort to prevent unintended exposures.  In other cases, there have been no warning signs or indications of the presence of a deadly gas. The same instructions for suicide by HazMat are also being used for making improvised toxic gas release devices to hinder police raids on Meth Labs.
The Office of Fire Prevention and Control (OFPC) in New York has advised first responders in their state that “there are no routine calls.”   The OFPC has developed a set of guidelines and a flow chart for first responders to use in their state.  These guidelines and an OFPC Information Paper on suicide by HazMat may be downloaded at: http://lepcnews.squarespace.com/hazmat-suicide/.