10 workers sickened by suspicious package at IRS facility in Kansas City

Ten workers at an Internal Revenue Service facility in Kansas City, Mo., complained of chest pains, vomiting and sweating Friday after exposure to a suspicious package.

James Garrett with the Kansas City fire department said those who fell ill were in the mail room of the building when the package showed up. Two people were hospitalized, according to media reports.

The package, which firefighters were trying to determine how to open safely, smelled of ammonia. Garrett said the room was quarantined and the box isolated.

“It is a package,” Garrett said, to WDAF-TV reported. “It is airborne. We don’t have reports of powder or anything like that, so whatever it was it was by smell and it was airborne.”

Contributing: Associated Press