A 15-year-old boy died Sept. 20 after being found unconscious in an underground water tank at a North Middlesex farm. Hydrogen sulfide gas was also discovered at the scene when local firefighters responded to the reported farm accident on Parkhill Drive, northwest of London, shortly after 4 p.m.
“Upon arrival, firefighters found high levels of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) in the building where access to the underground tank was located,” North Middlesex Fire Chief Greg Vandenheuvel said in a statement. “Wearing personal protective equipment, a crew was able to enter the building, assess the scene and secure the youth, extricating him from the tank and move him to fresh air where they assisted paramedics with resuscitation efforts.”
Paramedics transported the teen to hospital where he was later pronounced dead.
The name of the deceased was not released. He was a resident of Arkona and did not live at the farm, according to Middlesex OPP Const. Jeff Hare.
“Initial investigation looks like the youth was checking on a well on the property. I don’t believe there were any malfunctions of a lid or anything like that,” Hare said.
Ontario’s Labour ministry said it was investigating and had no further comment because of that ongoing investigation.
The boy’s death is the sixth on-farm fatality in Ontario this year, and the first involving a minor. There were four on-farm fatalities in the province last year, including one 17-year-old boy.
Known for its rotten-egg smell, toxic and explosive hydrogen sulfide gas has made recent headlines for the risks it poses on the farm, often in conjunction with manure storage. Six men died at a Colorado dairy farm in August after becoming overwhelmed by the gas in a manure pit. In September, Quebec coroner Nancy Bouchard warned of the dangers posed by gases like hydrogen sulfide, methane and ammonia, in her report into the October 2024 deaths of a dairy-farming couple in that province. But hydrogen sulfide can also accompany groundwater as a natural geographic feature. Part of the town of Wheatley, in Chatham-Kent, was evacuated for a day in June after a mix of the gas and water bubbled out of the ground. Wheatley also suffered a hydro sulfide explosion that destroyed two buildings in 2021.