I almost killed my family by cleaning my fish tank

Chris Matthews and his girlfriend were hospitalized on March 29,2018, after suffering from toxic fumes released by coral.

Ten people and two pooches were poisoned when a man cleaning hisfish tank unwittingly released fumes from the world』s 「seconddeadliest」 toxin, according to reports.

Chris Matthews, 27, was cleaning out his tank in his Oxfordshirehome in England late last month — when he took out a rock coveredin Pulsing Xenia coral and began scraping it, The Evening Timesreported.

Agitating the coral made it release the deadly substancepalytoxin into the air. After he was finished, Matthews closed thedoor and went to bed, according to the report.

The following day, Matthews, his girlfriend, mom, dad, sisterand her boyfriend came down with flu-like symptoms, Matthews toldthe paper.

「It was worse than flu, we couldn』t concentrate on anything,」 hetold the outlet. 「We couldn』t regulate our temperature — we werestruggling to breathe and coughing.

「It was when we noticed our two dogs had similar symptoms thatwe knew something wasn』t right,」 he recalled.

He called for help, sparking a massive emergency servicesresponse, including ambulances, fire crews and police, according tothe report.

Four firefighters even fell ill during the response. They werehospitalized, along with Matthews and the others.

The house was ventilated overnight, while chemical officers andpublic health officials worked to remove the rest of the coral.

Dr. Mike Leahy, a virologist featured on the National GeographicTV show 「Bite Me,」 lives in the town where the incident occurred,and tweeted a photo of the emergency response.

「The strangest thing for me is I』ve been all over the world, andthen I come back home and this happens in an Oxfordshire village,」Leahy told The Mirror. 「Palytoxin is the second deadliest poison inthe world, one gram can kill 80 people, though it has to beingested to be lethal.」

Matthews, who has kept tropical fish for 12 years, told TheEvening Times he had no idea that he had released the poisonoussubstance.

「If we had spent another night in that bedroom our lives wouldhave been in danger,」 he said. 「Certainly our dogs would have beenin a very bad way, according to the vet…. That is what is soworrying, what if there had been a young child or someone elderlyin the house?」

Experts consider 「botulinum toxin」 a protein produced by thebacterium Clostridium botulinum — and used to make skin-tightenerBotox — as the world』s deadliest toxin.