Blood sprays from Minneapolis sewers

I don't know which is more horrifying--that there's blood spurting out of our sewers or the fact that the company responsible for it has a permit to do so:

A Minneapolis city worker is worried about blood in the sewer system because he said, while he was cleaning the system, blood sprayed out of a hole and got all over him.

"We could tell it was blood, I mean large amount of blood," said Minneapolis Sewer Maintenance Worker Ron Huebner.

It happened about two weeks ago in Northeast Minneapolis near a lab that does medical testing and dumps blood into the sewer. It is allowed but the city is now making changes to help protect workers in the future.

"Blood just all over my face, in my mouth, I could taste it. It was terrible. I had it in my mouth and I kept spitting and I couldn't get rid of it," said Huebner.

Huebner said he hasn't been sleeping much. He's worried about the blood that he swallowed when he was operating a jet machine to clean out the sewer.

The Met Council said it was a mix of human and animal blood used in medical testing at this nearby lab.

In fact, the company, R & D Systems, does have a permit to dump blood in the sewer system.

However, Huebner wasn't protected or warned about the blood because his immediate bosses didn't know about.

"We did not specifically know that this particular facility was discharging blood into the sewer system," said Minneapolis Public Works Deputy Director Heidi Hamilton...