Part of Tulsa Jail evacuated after students on field trip get sick

BY KEVIN CANFIELD and ZACK STOYCOFF World Staff Writers
Thursday, May 10, 2012
5/10/12 at 7:27 PM

“Bizarre” and “weird” — those are the words officials are using to describe a wave of nausea, headaches and vomiting that overtook dozens of Bell Elementary School students as they toured the Tulsa Jail on Thursday morning.

Bizarre, weird and inexplicable — at least for now.

“Everyone on that scene, including the Hazmat people, were scratching their heads,” said EMSA spokesman Chris Stevens. “It’s just the most bizarre thing I have been involved in in some time.”

In all, 38 people — including 30 students — were transported in fair condition to local hospitals, Stevens said. No serious illnesses were reported.

Tulsa Public Schools released a statement Thursday afternoon saying 53 sixth-grade students and five adults visited the jail Thursday as part of a Career Day field trip.

“Bell Elementary School personnel contacted the parents of all students to let them know the location of their students,” the statement said. “The cause of the symptoms is not yet known and is still under investigation.”

Sheriff’s Office spokesman Shannon Clark said the incident began late in the morning when a single student complained of feeling faint while touring a training room in the jail’s administrative wing. After an ambulance was called, more and more students began saying they felt sick.

The decision to evacuate the administrative wing of the jail was made after firefighters arrived to find so many students with the same symptoms, said Fire Department spokesman Tim Smallwood.

Those symptoms — headaches, nausea and vomiting — are seen often by firefighters, Smallwood said.

“When we see that, the first thought process is, ‘This may be a carbon monoxide leak,’ ” he said.

Within minutes after firefighters and EMSA were called at 11:52 a.m., Denver Avenue in front of the jail was closed to the public as fire trucks and ambulances lined the street.

Over the next two hours, firefighters and medics tended to students in the parking lot, with those needing more medical care or further observation wheeled off on stretchers to waiting ambulances.

At an initial press briefing outside the jail, Stevens said, “We are going to assume, until proven otherwise, that they (the students) are being treated for signs of CO poisoning.”

But about an hour later, that possibility had been ruled out.

“Our Hazmat crews just finished up, and we swept the entire building,” Smallwood said. “There was nothing found in our readings.”

He added, “As of now, we’re kind of baffled on what happened, because there’s nothing showing up on the meters.”

Smallwood said the Fire Department checked with Tulsa Public Schools about the students who remained at Bell in case the problem was food poisoning from something they had eaten there, but only two students at the school were sick, “so we kind of ruled that out.”

The buses used to transport the students were also checked and came up clean, Smallwood said.

The jail resumed regular operations about 3 o’clock. But the detention wings of the facility, which held 1,513 inmates on Thursday, remained locked down until the dinner count, and inmate visitation hours were canceled.

Hazmat crews did one more sweep of the jail at 4:30 p.m. and again came up empty handed. “I don’t think I remember an incident where people got sick in a place and it didn’t have anything detectable in it,” Smallwood said before the last testing began. “That is why it was just a weird deal.”

After the testing, Smallwood said officials might never be able to explain what happened Thursday — “unless something (else) happens in the jail, in the same area, (that) we can test.”

Associated Images:

Students are removed from The David L. Moss Criminal Justice Center after many on a field trip became ill on Thursday. MIKE SIMONS/Tulsa World MIKE SIMONS

A Tulsa Firefighter carries a student to a waiting ambulance as students are removed from The David L. Moss Criminal Justice Center many on a field trip became ill on Thursday. MIKE SIMONS/Tulsa World

Emergency workers transport a student from the Tulsa Jail after a possible carbon monoxide leak prompted a partial evacuation of the jail. A school group was touring the jail at the time. MIKE SIMONS/Tulsa World