FORTY FORT -- One man is dead and authorities were called to investigate chemicals found inside his home in Luzerne County.
Emergency crews were called to the home along Sullivan Street in Forty Fort before 11 p.m. Tuesday.
It’s an emergency call crews first thought would end after taking the patient to a hospital, but that wasn’t the case just off Wyoming Avenue late Tuesday.
The homeowner was later identified by investigators as Scott Bare. The man in his early 50s was having trouble breathing outside his home on Sullivan Street. A neighbor called for help, and he was taken to a hospital where officials say he died of natural causes.
Neighbors told Newswatch 16 what they heard.
“He had said to the two boys across the street ‘put my dog in the house.’ And those were his last words,” recalled Dan Tucker.
Police said they were about to put the dog named Snowball back in the home, but when they walked inside, officials found what they described as a “plethora of liquids,” items that they first thought might be the makings of a drug lab. The scene became quite active involving more police and a hazardous materials team. Before sunrise, crews determined it was not a meth lab inside Scott Bare's home, but chemicals used to make soaps and shampoos.
“We don’t have anything that appears criminally suspicious but we’re not ruling anything out,” said Chief Fred Lahovski of the Forty Fort police.
Later in the morning, a hazmat team returned to the home along Sullivan Street to go back in and double check those chemicals that were found just to make sure they were no threat to any neighbors.
Forty Fort police said the air quality was checked and everything tested safe.
Officials said the chemicals will be removed from the house as a safety precaution.
As for Snowball, he's being cared for by a neighbor.