COLLINS, N.Y. (WKBW) — According to the NYS Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association, three corrections officers were hospitalized after a chemical exposure at Collins Correctional Facility on Tuesday.
The New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision said staff responded to an incarcerated individual reportedly having a medical emergency and then the individual began assaulting staff.
NYSCOPBA said that while transporting the individual to seek medical attention, two corrections officers and a sergeant began to experience lightheadedness, headaches and other symptoms.
“The inmate became super combative and the officers, at that point, had to use force so they could get handcuffs put on the inmate, to safely take him to the infirmary,” Vice President, NYSCOPBA Western Region, Kenny Gold said. “On the way, two officers and a sergeant began feeling off, they began feeling dizzy, they began feeling abnormally sweaty.”
They were transported to a local hospital for treatment and were released.
According to DOCCS, medical staff determined that the incarcerated individual was under the influence of an unknown intoxicant.
The Department of Corrections says the inmate’s living quarters were searched, but no contraband was recovered and normal operations resumed at the facility.
With this being the third chemical incident at a local prison in 10 days and the second at Collins, Gold tells me the union wants the whole prison searched.
“The union itself has asked for a lockdown," said Gold. "Lockdown means inmates don’t go anywhere, they stay there and search everything… Something has to give, there’s a problem, they need to go in there and figure out what it is.”
Including these three officers, a total of 20 WNY Corrections Officers have been hospitalized in three separate chemical exposures since August 4.
In an incident at Collins Correctional Facility on August 4, 11 officers, one inmate and one nurse went to the hospital after an unknown chemical exposure.
I obtained a copy of an internal email that was sent by the superintendent of Collins Correctional to the staff following the chemical exposure on August 4.
It reads in part “Preliminary testing appears to be indicative of a fentanyl exposure.”
On August 7, some WNY elected leaders, union members, and corrections officers came together and blamed NYS laws and the governor for creating unsafe conditions for officers.
Republican Congressman Nick Langworthy said these stories need to be told. He blamed Democrats in Albany for approving laws that he claims are “coddling criminals."
On August 8, the New York State Department of Corrections announced it was investigating an incident at the Wyoming Correctional Facility that sent six officers to local medical facilities.
The department said they were transported "out of an abundance of caution" after a substance was found on an incarcerated individual.
State police are still investigating the first two exposures and have not publicly announced what chemical the workers were exposed to.
On Monday we spoke with Vinny Blasio a 27-year veteran of DOCCS.
Now retired from his job as a corrections officer, Blasio has taken on a new role as an advocate for his former co-workers, who can’t speak to the media out of fear for their jobs.
“They were coming to me saying ‘We don’t have a voice,’” Blasio said. “The men and women of corrections were reaching out to me, supplying me with information, saying ‘We can’t say it, can you say it for us?'"
