Adding to this challenge is an increasing amount of fear, which on Tuesday led to panic in Washington D.C. Rescue workers in Temple Hills, Md., a nearby D.C. suburb, were trying to sort out whether an armed man with a jar of stinky stuff on the subway had exposed commuters to something deadly. Several hours later it was determined that the man had not spread anything deadly. The first responders found about 35 people complaining of nausea, dry throat and headaches after being exposed first to a liquid the man carried on the train and then to pepper spray police used to subdue him. By protocol, the people were isolated at the scene instead of being whisked away to a hospital, which could have spread any dangerous substance. It was almost routine.
Big cities are well trained and well equipped to deal with mysterious substances.
But these days, almost nothing is routine. The emergency response was monitored by the Health and Human Services bioterrorism situation room. To end fears that swept the city, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson announced that the substance appeared to be harmless and the incident was not a terrorist attack. Such episodes are likely to be repeated across the nation in coming days, emergency room doctors say, as fear fuels both odd behavior and unusually aggressive reactions. People are jumpy, and they have a right to be jumpy.