Woman cleaning sap tank dies from fumes

BIG SIX TOWNSHIP – A Quebec woman died last week when she apparently was overcome by fumes from a chemical she was using to clean the inside of a 4-foot-deep sap tank at the family’s maple syrup operation in St. Aurelie.

Because the woman apparently died alone, the body of Claudette Cloutier, 43, of St-Joseph-de-Beauce was taken Saturday to the state Medical Examiner’s Office in Augusta, where an autopsy is to be conducted this week.

Cloutier’s death was reported to the Somerset County Sheriff’s Department on Friday afternoon after Cloutier’s husband, Viateur Giroux, found her body.

When the message was conveyed, wardens at first thought that a husband had awakened to find his wife dead, according to Sgt. Pat Dorian of the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.

When they arrived in this remote township on the northern tip of Somerset County, they found a very different scenario.

Giroux told authorities that he left to go to work on Monday while his wife remained behind at the couple’s sugar operation, where she planned to scrape and clean three 20-foot-wide, 4-foot-deep sap tanks. Giroux said his wife told him she would return to their St-Joseph-de-Beauce home later in the week.

Arriving home from work on Friday and not finding his wife, Giroux went to St. Aurelie to check on her. Giroux told wardens that he found his wife in the bottom of one of three sap tanks and, at first, thought she was asleep. He said he climbed into the tank and discovered that she was dead.

“It was a real tragedy,” Dorian said. He noted that the couple recently had lost a son to complications from pneumonia. “It’s a very tough time for the family.”

Authorities believe Cloutier became unconscious and died either Monday or Tuesday from the solvent vapor or from lack of oxygen in the tight quarters. Dorian said the three sap tanks were located close together in the same building and had straps and boards partially covering their tops.

“It was a very convoluted case,” Dorian said. When wardens arrived, they were somewhat fearful of removing Cloutier’s body because they were unsure if foul play was involved and because of the unknown chemical remaining in the tank.

Cloutier had been wearing a dust mask “which was of no value to her whatsoever in the tank,” he said.

Also inside the tank was a plastic container that had disintegrated, a brush and some solvent, he said. The directions to the chemicals were written in French, which added to the confusion, he said. The state Department of Public Safety’s Criminal Investigation Division and the Department of Environmental Protection were called for assistance.

Dorian said two hazardous materials specialists wearing protective gear recovered Cloutier’s body from the tank.