Retrieving MySQL data stored with special characters fails using PHP

Hi. Please could someone help me understand what's happening here.
I have a MySQL database which has a table with some data in the following format:

2022-03-15 06:55:39:<br/>LineOfSight:<br/>java.lang.Exception:<br/> UNAVAILABLE TELEMETRY BR$0

The field collation is utf8 and the data is stored as text.

This data is provided via a 3rd party API so I have no control over input format. I simply want to echo that line of data but the page chokes and never loads when I run my query. The query runs fine directly in phpMySQL as well as in Toad for MySQL and MySQL workbench so it has to be a PHP parsing issue.

My code:

$serialnumber = 123456;
$sql = "SELECT rmAlarms.instruct,
       rmAlarms.technical
  FROM qpsdf_db1.rmAlarms rmAlarms
 WHERE (rmAlarms.serialnumber = '$serialnumber')";
            $database->setQuery($sql);
            $result = $database -> loadObjectList();            
            foreach ($result as $key => $results){
     $technical = htmlentities($results->technical);
     $instruct = htmlentities($results->instruct);
     echo $technical;?><br><?php
     echo $instruct;?><br><?php
            }

The field in question is rmAlarms.technical

If I comment out the relevant fields as below then the query works and the data is returned correctly.

$serialnumber = 123456;
    $sql = "SELECT rmAlarms.instruct,
           rmAlarms.technical
      FROM qpsdf_db1.rmAlarms rmAlarms
     WHERE (rmAlarms.serialnumber = '$serialnumber')";
                $database->setQuery($sql);
                $result = $database -> loadObjectList();            
                foreach ($result as $key => $results){
         //$technical = htmlentities($results->technical);
         $instruct = htmlentities($results->instruct);
         //echo $technical;?><br><?php
         echo $instruct;?><br><?php
                }

I have tried using:
$technical = htmlentities($results->technical);
As well as:
$technical = $results->technical;
both with the same results.

What am I missing? Any insight appreciated.