MEXICO – Twenty alternative education secondary students were bused to Rumford Hospital Monday morning after foul-smelling air leaked into their classroom.
All 20 were checked out and released within an hour or so, SAD 43 Superintendent James Hodgkin said.
He said the district’s fire system company was conducting a routine inspection of the system in a portion of the former Mexico High School, now the Mexico Recreation Center, when a pressure valve let go. He said the dead, foul-smelling air from the pipes seeped into the classroom causing four or five students to feel nauseous.
Mexico Fire Chief Gary Wentzell said that at about 10:20 a.m., an air pressure relief valve stuck on a large sprinkler system housed in the bottom floor of the building off Parker Street.
“There was no fire, no smoke, no explosions,” Wentzell said. “We took a reading with a gas detection monitor and found nothing. There was no carbon monoxide.”
The building, which also houses a wellness center, was evacuated.
The students were in a room on the structure’s Mitchell Street end.
“The air in there smelled a little bit like oil. It was a dank smell of stagnant air. At first, we thought it was a compressor, but it wasn’t that,” Wentzell added.
He said he believed that some of the youths complained of feeling nauseated, but no one vomited. Med-Care Ambulance sent four ambulances and paramedics, but the youths were taken to the hospital in a SAD 43 bus.
Firefighters and SAD 43 officials opened doors and windows, and aired out the downstairs area with large exhaust fans.
The scene was cleared around noon.
Hodgkin said students are scheduled to return to their classrooms Tuesday.
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