Scary

Had a call from my daughter around lunch time saying that someone had released some sort of gas in her school and a number of students and teachers have been taken to hospital with breathing difficulties. The rest of the students have all now been sent home after being let out in small groups. The school is crawling with the police, and people in ¨white coats¨. There's nothing in the the news so far.

Might just be a prank I suppose, someone's twisted way of marking the Auschwitz day?

 

OMG

Is your daughter ok?

If this is what it seems, there are some seriously, seriously sick people out there.

 

She's fine at home. Like I said, it's probably a prank, I can't see why her school would be a target. But what sort of sick person does this sort of thing?

 

BNP. Neo-Nazis. Holocaust deniers. Any number of people

 

Dev,

I can't find any news items yet but this has given me a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. Thank God your daughter's ok and hopefully the others are as well.

I can't tell you how much I hope that this is just a prank and not connected with the events of today. I have to ask as I know that many Jews live in Ilford. Does the school have a high proportion of Jewish children or children from other ethnic minorities?

When your own child is involved I would imagine scary isn't the half of it.

 

Yes.

 

Right, just got home a few minutes ago and had confirmation that it was a prank.I had a letter from the school waiting for me and I quote:-

"Dear Parent/Guardian

I am writing to inform you of an incident that occurred in school today. At the moment we are unclear about the exact cause of the problem, but it is thought that a chemical has been released in school which has caused some discomfort to a very small number of students, such as a cough, watery eyes and, in some cases, difficulty in breathing."

It goes on but apparently it was some students sick idea of as joke. You can imagine the chaos with all the local roads being blocked by the police.

OTOH, I am relieved that it's nothing sinister.

 

phew

 

my first thought was 'stink bomb'

It could be something as silly as that.

 

I wonder how they managed to keep it all out of the media. I guess the media are more under police control than I thought.

 

It wasn't a stink bomb. According to my daughter (and she's only heard it from her friends!) it was a combination of aerosols including hairspray. It was a few student's idea of marking the Auschwitz anniversary. Talk about a sick SOH. It caused panic, some students did suffer ill effects mentioned already and most of the students were stuck in the common room for about 3 hours before being told to go home.

I don't think media would have wasted time on such a hoax. They (the police, teachers etc.) must have realised fairly quickly that it was just a sick joke.

 

Sadly some children have no sense of responsibility and would see that sort of 'prank' as funny. It'll make the local media, maybe ceefax. The police are very uninterested in what happens in schools. There have been cases I know of where pupils have been selling drugs and the police have refused to attend. For the school to deal with.
The media won't be interested unless something very tragic happens. A boy died after a fight recently in a school near my authority, it hardly troubled the national press. A prank is of little interest to them

 

Right, according to the police, it was CS gas. The cannisters apparently look like hairspray cans.