STUDENTS FALL ILL AT DRILL MEET
MORE THAN 20 TAKEN TO AREA HOSPITALS
More than 20 students were rushed to area hospitals from a gym inside of Midview High School in Eaton Township Saturday afternoon during a multi-state ROTC Drill Meet.Eaton Township Fire Department received a 9-1-1 call at 3:41 p.m. Saturday afternoon of a 15 year old female passed out at the Midview High School Gym, after arriving on the scene more students started feeling dizzy and faint, that is when Eaton Township Fire Chief Phil Slack knew he had something big on his hands.
“The kids were there as part of an ROTC Drill Meet in the small gymnasium, they had been there all day doing their drills and then for some reason a number of them started feeling dizzy and faint. After about 5 or 6 patients I realized that there was something more going on here then we knew.” Chief Slack said that at first they thought it might have been heat exhaustion or a type of food poisoning with the kids eating hot dogs and other junk food all day, but none of the kids were complaining of nausea or vomiting.
Chief Slack began requesting mutual aid from surrounding communities to help handle the number of patients that they had on their hands. “We had kids who had left the gym area and were passing out in the hallways and outside of the building. With that I requested ambulances from Columbia Township, Grafton Township and Grafton Village. In all we transported more than 20 people to area hospitals.” Because of the large number of patients and potential patients Carlisle Township Fire Department was called in to assist with triaging and treating the victims.
Chief Slack said that after they had sent about 10 kids to Elyria Memorial they were asked to start sending them to other hospitals. “When they get so many that they can’t handle they notified us to start diverting them so we sent the remaining students to Allen Medical Center in Oberlin and to St. John West Shore in Westlake."
In addition to the patients that Elyria Memorial received by ambulance they were also receiving patients arriving in personal cars for treatment.
Tom Kelley, Lorain County Emergency Management Agency Director was called to the scene due to the large number of patients and because the cause was still unknown. “Having Tom on scene helps us tremendously because if we need anything he just gets on the phone and knows the right people to call and we have it.”
Officials checked the air for possible Carbon Monoxide readings but they were not at any dangerous levels.
A play that was scheduled for Saturday night in the large gym was canceled.
Officials will be back in the building Sunday to try and determine what caused the kids to get sick.
posted by TMC NEWS at 6:43 PM
6 Comments:
SOUNDS LIKE MASS HYSTERIA
I would like to know why Eaton fire department never evacuated the building??? Shouldn't that have been one of the first things to do??? And if they didn't know the cause, why were they just letting people walk in and out??? I'm glad other departments showed up because I have no faith in our own.
Our school was evacuated. Granted, it was after some students had passed out, but more passing out would have happened anyways because they had been basically sitting in whatever fumes they were sitting in for a while.
I was one of the students there, though I was not affected by the carbon monxide leak. I could not believe that they did not evacuate the building, we could have saved some people from the leak. They told us all to come back in and then we had to get out! It was absolutely crazy! You would never think something like this would have happened.
i think school tomorrow should be cancelled.
there was no leak. it was just from heat, and/or people freaking out because of it
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