{"id":53717,"date":"2025-09-30T22:41:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T22:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/53717\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T22:41:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T22:41:07","slug":"several-people-taken-to-hospital-in-belfast-after-possible-contact-with-noxious-substance-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/53717\/","title":{"rendered":"Several people taken to hospital in Belfast after possible contact with \u2018noxious substance\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">A number of people were taken to hospital as a precaution following contact with a \u201cpossibly noxious substance\u201d at a house in south <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/belfast\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/belfast\/\">Belfast<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The alarm was raised at around 5.30pm on Tuesday when emergency services attended a property in Damascus Street following reports of a number of people feeling unwell.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said four people, and a number of police officers, were taken to hospital as a precaution.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cIt follows potential contact with a possibly noxious substance in the property,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cTheir conditions are not life-threatening.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In a statement issued around 9.30pm, police said specialist colleagues were conducting checks and there was no wider risk to the public at that time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">District Commander Superintendent Allister Hagan said the incident had been contained.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cOur priority is always the safety of the public and our officers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cWhile a number of people were taken to hospital as a precaution, I want to reassure the community that this incident is contained and there is no risk to the wider public.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cWe continue to work with partner agencies to confirm the circumstances and will provide updates as appropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Earlier, the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service (NIAS) said it had taken four patients to the Royal Hospital in Belfast.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A NIAS statement said: \u201cThe Northern Ireland Ambulance Service received a number of 999 calls shortly after 17.00 on Tuesday September 30 following reports of an incident in the Damascus Street area.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cNIAS despatched four emergency crews to the incident.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cFollowing assessment and initial treatment at the scene, four patients were taken to Royal Victoria Hospital.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">At 9.30pm, the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service said their crews had left the scene.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cCrews from Central, Cadogan, Lisburn and Dromore initially attended supported by five officers,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cCrews utilised detection and monitoring equipment to assist in resolving the incident.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cCrews have now left the scene.\u201d &#8211; PA <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A number of people were taken to hospital as a precaution following contact with a \u201cpossibly noxious substance\u201d&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53718,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[4501,42,43,2443,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-53717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-belfast","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-northern-ireland","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}