In the dark about halide bulb danger

PALM HARBOR - Everyone in the Sadler family had become convinced their house was on fire. Even though they didn’t see any flames, it appeared to be smoldering.

“It looked foggy to me,” remembered Shari Sadler.  “I thought that there was like smoke in the house.”

It was a February evening and the family had just returned from an open house at Palm Harbor University High School. Once they were home, their eyes began to burn.

“It was really like someone took a needle and put it in my eyes and it was incredibly painful,” said Dr. Barry Sadler, a local urologist.

They called 911, but firefighters couldn’t find anything wrong: no fire, smoke, or gas. The Sadlers left their home and went to the emergency room to have their eyes checked. The next morning, they learned they weren't the only ones suffering.

”I woke up at 4 in the morning and my eyes were in excruciating pain,” said Ronna Sharp, a neighbor who also attended the open house in Palm Harbor University’s gymnasium that night.

“I couldn't tell if my eyes were more comfortable open or closed,” recalled Sharp. “It hurt both ways.”

Later that day, word spread that more than a dozen people at the open house were visiting their doctors, complaining of the same painful symptoms. It turned out their eyes had been burned by something in the gymnasium.

“We saw smoke, but the reason we saw smoke was because our corneas were burned,” said Dr. Sadler.

The Pinellas County School District traced the problem back to a light in the gym placed just above the bleachers. That light was a type “R” metal halide bulb. Used since the 1970s, they’re perfectly safe unless the outer glass cracks or breaks. Where an ordinary household bulb would go out, the tube inside a type “R” bulb keeps burning and can release dangerous ultraviolet radiation.

“I think virtually no one in the medical profession is aware of this,” said Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University who has studied the effects of metal halide lights.

“It bothers patients a lot because within hours, they get a lot of eye pain and they get all confused and they may awaken in middle of the night,” Schaffner continued.

The Sadler family and the other people at the open house in Palm Harbor have since recovered, but there are cases where the damage still lingers. Several elementary teachers in the Portland, Oregon area say they are still suffering after they were exposed to a broken light back in 2004.

The teachers were in a gymnasium all day for an in-service workshop.

“It's more and more painful and seems to get progressively worse over time,” said Kellie Lafollette, one of the teachers on a mission to get the word out. She and her husband have set up a web site and even persuaded Oregon’s governor to sign a law removing type “R” halide light bulbs from all of the state’s public schools.

The bulb manufactures have warnings on the outside of the packaging, but Dr. Schaffner thinks that's not good enough. He says a simple fix is to replace type “R” bulbs used indoors with a type “T” bulb. It costs more, but the light goes out if the glass breaks or even cracks.

The Food and Drug Administration is aware of the injuries associated with type “R” bulbs. The agency says type “R” bulbs are acceptable to use outdoors, such as at a ballpark, but type “T” self-extinguishing bulbs can reduce the risks inside gyms.

The FDA put that message on its web site a couple years ago, but apparently some schools are still in the dark.

“We were lucky that the exposure was only for an hour,” said Ronna Sharp of Palm Harbor.

She’s glad the Pinellas County School District quickly replaced all the type “R” bulbs in every gym in the district, but is concerned there may be many other school districts that still need to be enlightened to this potential hazard.