Elmore Stoutt High School is back open following an evacuation Thursday afternoon, when a strong odour in the area made several students sick, officials said.
“There was a smell in the area that drifted all the way down to our headquarters, and when we went up there we noticed that there were some students that were not feeling well,” Chief Fire Officer Zebalon McLean said Friday. “A couple of the students were at the point of collapse.”
Seven students were taken to the hospital while fire officers were on the scene, and three more were reported hospitalised later, Mr. McLean added.
The officers responded with devices to test for carbon monoxide and other gases, but they were unable to determine the cause of the odour, the fire chief said.
He added that it did not appear to be coming from the school grounds, but from the northeast.
“We were not too sure. We got a report from a couple guys working at Water and Sewerage that they were applying some water purification chemicals [nearby], and there may have been a bit of escape from one or two of those chemicals that could have caused that,” Mr. McLean said, adding that the odour soon dissipated.
Quick thinking on the part of school administrators enabled the school to be evacuated before more students got sick, he added.
On Thursday afternoon, Government Information Services announced the evacuation, asking parents to pick up their children on the softball field next to the school.
See the March 28, 2013 edition for full coverage.
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