Hollywood, FL – This NBC article suggests that those who were affected at the school (May 16) were simply experiencing mass hysteria and/or mass FAKING it so they could get out of class. Right, the teachers too?
“Two teachers and 13 students wore blue covers and rode a special county bus to Hollywood Memorial Regional Hospital where they were inspected by crews in Hazmat suits before being treated and released Wednesday.
Hospital officials checked the teachers and students in the parking lot to make sure they weren’t carrying contaminants, before allowing them into the emergency room.
Valarie Campbell, a ninth grader, watched things unfold inside her second-floor classroom, Room 944.
Campbell blames a few mosquitoes for causing the uproar that drew police, firefighters, and Hazmat crews.
Some students “just wanted to get out of class,” she said. They started scratching, she added, but noted that her teacher had red marks from bug bites.
School leaders have not officially identified the cause of the skin irritations and authorities say they may never know what caused the disturbance.
“You have symptoms that obviously manifested themselves and for an undetermined cause,” Hollywood Fire Chief Joel Medina said. “We can’t explain why there would be an irritant, especially isolated.”
School officials had the campus cleaned before students returned Thursday. Though they said the hallways are safe for students, some reluctantly returned to class.
“I don’t want to go to school,” said student Dale Fasking, who was not in the affected classroom Wednesday. Fasking said he wouldn’t want to bring any diseases home and put his baby sister in jeopardy. He headed to class anyway.
An air conditioning technician said crews examined school vents and found no residue of anything alarming.”
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The barrel of mystery toxic chemical/s showed up late on the night of Sunday, May 13, 2012 and was still there on Tuesday the 15th at which point HAZMAT teams made the decision to blow the container up.
“Hazmat teams do know this: Inside the dangerous drum percolated a cocktail of chemicals “from the sodium perchlorate family — extremely flammable,” Hollywood Fire Rescue division chief Mark Steele said Tuesday.
But before the detonation, Broward sheriff’s bomb squad and hazmat units tried to wrestle with the hissing container and analyze its contents.
The saga started when city crews lugged the drum to a beach public works complex at 112 N. Ocean Dr. in Hollywood.
But when workers arrived Monday, it was smoking.
The day-long effort to remove the drum grew complicated in the afternoon when it broke apart and spewed white smoke, Hollywood fire officials said. That’s when the county teams were summoned.”
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