u/Every-Temperature-28

So I work at a vet hospital as a vet assistant. This morning we came in and everything was as usual. Then about an hour into the day, the entire team started having a really bad coughing/sneezing fit. NOT LIKE ALLERGIES. One VA could smell an odd smell and it was not an anesthesia type smell. We got random inflamed rashes, I had one on my upper lip area, another VA had one on her lip and on her nose near where her glasses rested. It was irritated and red for over an hour. At one point I wiped the corner of my eye and my eye started burning so badly I needed to rinse it out. Then we would have random leftover coughing/sneezing but not in such a big group wave. At first, my shift lead thought we were just being hysterical and we tried to shrug it off. A couple hours later, it happened again. At that point her upper lip did get a rash and she was worried that maybe something was going on. Around this point, I was in another area of the hospital and smelled the smell that my coworker was smelling, it’s indescribable, but could tell it was not normal. A couple hours later, my manager had arrived and the fit happened to everyone in the hospital AGAIN, including my manager. She started coughing so badly, she threw up. At this point, she got the building manager, to come in to see if he could at least agree that there was an odd smell. He agreed and also started to experience the burning lip. At one point later in the day, he habitually went to bite his nails and stated it made his mouth start burning. At this point, we did call the fire fighters and had EMS come. All vitals of everyone was fine and the FF could not find any source of leak or issue. They said we had similar symtoms to being exposed to mace in the air, as if someone had a pepper spray in their bag that accidentally went off. No one brought pepper spray inside the vet hospital so that was not the cause. We did open the back door of the building that we aren’t technically supposed to have open, but to ensure air flow and fresh air. By 3-4pm, we were back in the hospital and didn’t have another group episode. However, we never felt “normal.” My palms burned for 3 hours after. Around 6 pm, my manager mistakenly touched her eyes (we wash our hands constantly throughout the day) and they started burning and we had to flush her eye again. Any idea what this could’ve possibly been?