Code orange alert issued at Lee Memorial Hospital

A Code Orange alert was issued at Lee Memorial Hospital in Fort Myers on U.S. 41 Thursday afternoon after emergency services responded to the Calusa Nature Center for a hazmat situation.

A code orange refers to a chemical hazard or spill, a mass casualty incident or a disaster that overwhelms the hospital’s resources.

• RELATED: An inside look at the Fort Myers hazmat team

According to the Fort Myers Fire Department, the incident began at the Calusa Nature Center and Planetarium.

Three employees from Indian River State College were exposed to a mercury spill after a projector light bulb broke during replacement.

According to Eric Raddatz, the Executive Director of Calusa Nature Center and Planetarium, the planetarium is currently undergoing renovations.

The planetarium is donating a projector to Indian River State College. An employee from the University was on-site Thursday dismantling the projector when the mercury bulb was dropped, breaking on her head.

Out of precaution, the patient was transported to the hospital, and they are hearing she will be OK.

The Fort Myers Fire Department found a small amount of mercury spilled on the floor. The state hazmat team came out to examine it.

WINK News has text messages from workers at Lee Memorial of the code orange.

They say, “Warning: Stay away. LMH Emergency triage area. Code orange until further notice.”

A second message said “Patients arrived at LHM with contamination. Fire department on scene.”

Lee Memorial is diverting EMS patients to other hospitals during the situation. Walk-ins are still welcome.

“Mercury is a highly toxic compound,” said Professor Thomas Missimer. “Ingesting it in some form, it can cause … death, and it can cause some other debilitating neurotoxic symptoms.”

Missimer said mercury can be found in many things, including rainwater, fish, thermometers, old light bulbs and even Saharan dust.

“At atmospheric temperatures, that can volatilize, and then you can breathe it, so, typically, on a one-time event, though, they’ll take the people to the hospital,” said Missimer.

When his students at FGCU work with mercury, they have a protocol in place to follow to keep everyone safe.

Similar to the protocol WINK News witnessed from the Fort Myers Fire Department on Thursday evening.

“We did go in as a team and with the [Florida Department of Environmental Protection],” said Tom Boland with the Fort Myers Fire Department. “We had all of our personal protective equipment on, went down range. We found the product, we cleaned it all up, we did some air monitoring.”

Correction: an earlier version of this story identified the patients as students. They are all employees of Hallstrom planetarium in Indian River.