An incident this morning at a Teakettle school has puzzled the entire community. Soon after classes began, several standard six students, who use the church as a classroom, fell ill; some of them fainted and had to be rushed to the Western Regional Hospital. All shared similar symptoms of dizziness, nausea and severe headaches. The students have since been released but doctors have been unable to determine what went wrong at the school. News Five's Delahnie Bain reports.
Delahnie Bain, Reporting
Eleven students out of a class of thirty-five at the St. Edmund R.C. School ended up at the Western Regional Hospital this morning. They all mysteriously fell ill and started fainting, leaving everyone in Teakettle Village as well as the doctors baffled as to what may have caused the sudden wave of sickness. The standard six teacher explained how it all unfolded, starting just before nine o’clock.
Voice of: Standard 6 Teacher, St. Edmund R.C. School
"I came to school and then a little before nine, like quarter to nine a little child started to feel dizziness, nausea and headache-striking headache-so I took him to the office. I thought that it wasn't anything, I thought it was just that he didn't have breakfast. So I went to the office and I told the vice principal this child was not feeling well. So we decided that he had to go home cause he's not feeling well so they took him home. By the time he went home and I got over with him, another child was feeling the same symptoms; headache, nausea and he was limping, couldn't walk. So I brought him in and as I was attending to that one the other students were out picking up garbage from standard six cause it's Friday and by the time I was attending to him and I went out, I had two other cases and it was the same. So I took them to the office and the vice principal said its best we take them to the hospital because we don't know what’s wrong with them. In about fifteen, twenty minutes we had three more coming in and after that they were treating them and in a little while we had a total of eleven students in the hospital with the same symptoms; headache, dizziness, one of them was seeing doubles and couldn't even speak properly."
Twelve year old K-Cee Usher was one of the affected students and he says there was a strange smell in classroom this morning.
Voice of: K-Cee Usher, Std 6 Student, St. Edmund R.C. School
"Eena my class yoh had wah smell dat we neva smell before eena we class and after that so much ah we classmates just ketch way severe headache and some ah dehn just start feel bad afta dat."
Delahnie Bain
"So all of them were from your class?"
Voice of: K-Cee Usher
"Yes, at least about eleven?"
Delahnie Bain
"So what did you do when you start to feel bad?"
Voice of: K-Cee Usher
"I just sit down and started to cry. I was drinking water and when I done drink the water I mi di feel bad so I throw weh di water."
Delahnie Bain
"And the other kids, they were just in the class?"
Voice of: K-Cee Usher
"No, we were under a tree because eena di class, di scent."
Ruby Usher had just left her son at school and headed to Belmopan when she got the news.
Voice of: Ruby Usher, Mother of K-Cee Usher
"I was going to the market, I got a phone call from my friend and she said Ms. Ruby, you know what dehn just ker K-Cee da hospital. I seh what? And she seh yes. I seh but weh cause it? and den she seh like eleven ah di children dehn fainted and dehn had to take them to the hospital. I seh, you know, like weh cause dis? And she seh she noh know neither. I got frightened and like cold seed all over me. I seh hmm cause dis is the first time this happen to my [knowledge] this dah di first time ih happen dah Teakettle school, the first time something like this happen. All my children went to that school and never we had this before."
Ruby's fears were compounded when she arrived at the hospital and K-Cee was the only student that was still hospitalized. His condition was complicated since he is asthmatic.
Ruby Usher
"I went straight into the emergency and I si my son-and he dah di only one weh still, like he neva come to yet. He mi deh pan drips and he had oxygen and all di rest ah children they were up already. I seh my God dah weh do my baby now. So he dah di last one weh lef di hospital."
Voice of: K-Cee Usher
"Different people like some of my friends' parents took different people and teachers."
Delahnie Bain
"So can you tell us what happened when you were at the hospital?"
Voice of: K-Cee Usher
"When I mi deh dah hospital, dehn just give me wah drip and wait till ih done. Dehn ask me different questions if I had headache or anything."
Delahnie Bain
"So how are you feeling now?"
Voice of: K-Cee Usher
"Better."
Voice of: Standard 6 Teacher
"I have no idea, I don't know what it was. Doctors just suspected that maybe they had some insecticide or something that they smelled inside the classroom but otherwise I have no idea what it was."
While the students have all been released from the hospital, today's episode remains an unsolved mystery. Delahnie Bain for News Five.
The remaining students went home early since classes concluded at midday on the last Friday of each month.
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