Ammonia leak leads to evacuation of Central Park Athletics

Central Park Athletics was evacuated late Sunday morning due to an ammonia leak, Windsor Fire confirmed.

Windsor's 'AAA' Jr. Spitfires bantam hockey team was playing Lambton Jr. Sting at the time of the evacuation, according to Kelly Drouillard-Dagenais, the parent of one of Windsor's goalies.

Windsor Fire District Chief Bob Mijovcic said there was a small leak in the service area of the arena, and the entire building was subsequently evacuated.

Fifteen firefighters responded to the scene around 11:30 a.m. Crews went into the building and shut a valve off to mitigate the leak.

"Right now we're in the process of monitoring the building to make sure there's no product inside, and get them up and running in the near future," Mijovcic said.

He explained that it sounds like the leak was caused by a broken valve.

About 75 people were in the building at the time, he said, including people on the ice and in the swimming pool that had to get out. He added that no one was harmed.

"We had approximately 25 people examined by EMS and they were all cleared," Mijovcic said.

He said they brought in a bus from Transit Windsor for those who were evacuated.

The hockey game that was in action at the time of the evacuation was cancelled, explained Drouillard-Dagenais, and the team is still waiting to see if it will be made up at a later date.

Ammonia is a chemical used in the refrigeration systems of many ice rinks.

"Ammonia can be very toxic in large quantities, dangerous," the district chief said.

"But it's a product that's used around the world everyday for cooling and other industrial uses."

He said he doesn't know of this sort of thing having happened at this building before.

The building should be open once again by Sunday evening, he said.