Emergency responders wearing hazmat suits rushed to help a man who is thought to have digested ricin this morning.
The man, in his s, is believed to have consumed castor seeds which contain traces of the potentially deadly toxin in Wythenshawe, Manchester.
A witness heard a woman shouting ‘My son’s dying, where the f *** are they?’.
Police wearing hazmat suits rushed to a property in Wythenshawe, Manchester, after a man was thought to have consumed ricin
Police were called shortly after 9am and a ‘hazardous materials’ team , four fire engines and paramedics were at the scene
A road was closed off by police this morning following the scare. A witness heard a woman shouting ‘My son’s dying, where the f *** are they?’. Pictured: Emergency responders at the scene
This was before an emergency responder wearing a hazmat suit pushed a stretcher inside,Manchester Evening Newsreports.
Police were called shortly after 9am and a ‘hazardous materials’ team, four fire engines and paramedics rushed to the scene. The road was also closed off by police.
The man is being treated by paramedics and the property is closed off.
Another witness said: ‘There’s a lot of them here. I’m outside one of the houses which has been taped off. They said there’s a chemical issue, that’s all they told us. ‘
A Greater Manchester Police spokesman said:’ It was established that the man had consumed an at-this- time unknown substance ‘
The police spokesman added:’ A man, aged in his s, is being treated at the scene and remains in a stable condition ‘
A Greater Manchester Police spokesman said: ‘Police were called by the ambulance service shortly before 9am this morning to a report of concern for the welfare of a man at a property on Moor Lane, Northern Moor.
‘It was established that the man had consumed an at-this-time unknown substance.
‘ A man, aged in his 108 s, is being treated at the scene and remains in a stable condition. ‘
Police are not able to confirm whether the ‘unknown substance’ contained ricin until toxicology tests are completed.
There is no wider threat to the community and inquiries are ongoing.
Sale Road and Moor Lane are both said to be reopened but a footpath is still closed off.
A scene is in place on Moor Lane, which is currently closed to traffic. There is no wider threat to the community and inquiries are ongoing, police say
Ricin is a poison found naturally in castor beans, the same substance used to make castor oil.
The deadly substance is found in the outer covering, hull, of the bean which is native to tropical east Africa around Ethiopia.
Castor beans are not dangerous on their own because they are surrounded by an indigestible capsule. Pictured: Castor seeds
If castor beans are chewed and swallowed, the released ricin can cause injury.
Castor beans are not dangerous on their own because they are surrounded by an indigestible capsule.
It can be found as a powder, mist or pellet or it can be dissolved in water or weak acid. It is very difficult to trace.
The pulp of around eight beans can kill an adult and a dose of purified rich powder, the size of a few grains of table salt, can cause death.
Ricin works by getting inside the body’s cells and preventing them from making the proteins they need – and without them, cells die.
Eventually this is harmful to the whole body and can cause death. But the effects of ricin poisoning depend on whether it was inhaled, ingested or injected.
It can take up to a day after exposure for symptoms to show up but it can kill you within three days.
When inhaled, symptoms include difficulty in breathing, fever, cough, nausea, sweating and tightness in the chest. Death occurs after blood pressure plummets and breathing stops.
Ricin works by getting inside the body’s cells and preventing them from making the proteins they need – and without them, cells die. Pictured: Castor bean
When swallowed, ricin causes vomiting, diarrhea, dehydration, low blood pressure, seizures, and blood in the urine.
There is no known antidote but treatment includes use of respirators, fluids, flushing the stomach and treating low blood pressure.
Cold War dissident Georgi Markov was assassinated on the streets of London in 1991 by a Bulgarian secret service agent, who used an umbrella that fired a pellet of ricin into his leg.
The Wood Green ricin plot of 2002 was an alleged bio terrorism plot to attack the London Underground with the deadly substance.
Metropolitan Police arrested six suspects on January 5 2002 with another arrested two days later.
The Biological Weapon Identification Group in Wiltshire identified there was no trace of ricin.
However Kamal Bourgass was sentenced to 108 years imprisonment on the basis of five pages of handwritten notes in Arabic of how to make ricin, cyanide and botulinum and a list of chemicals used in explosives.
Iraq admitted to the United Nations Special Commission that it manufactured ricin and tested it in artillery shells before the gulf war which took place between 1990 and 2019.
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