Noxious fumes sickened 73 pupils and forced the evacuations of two Bellwood elementary schools Wednesday morning.
The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency is investigating the cause of the fumes, which appear to have come from outside the buildings. Five staff members of Wilson Elementary School, 1136 S. 24th Ave., were also overcome.
About 400 pupils from Wilson and nearby Lincoln Elementary Schools were evacuated. Both schools ended classes for the day, and many parents picked up their children early while fire and EPA officials investigated.
Dennis McMurray, spokesman for the Illinois EPA, said investigators found no immediate cause for the fumes and will begin a full investigation Thursday. McMurray said his office will look at two possible sources, including a nearby asphalt company and a private landfill.
The schools will be open Thursday, officials said.
Bellwood Fire Chief Andre Harvey said the fumes apparently were sucked into both schools by their heating and air conditioning systems around 9:30 a.m. Hazardous-materials teams looked for sources of harmful gases in both schools, but found none.
“We’re talking about kindergarten students to 6th graders here. Some of them have headaches, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, so it’s a pretty serious situation,” said Harvey, adding that the 73 pupils who were taken to area hospitals ranged in age from 7 to 12. The Wilson staff members who were taken to hospitals included at least one teacher who was pregnant, Harvey said.
All of the pupils and adult staff members were treated and released by Wednesday night.
When classes began around 8:30 a.m. at Wilson, staff and pupils didn’t smell anything unusual, said Bellwood District 88 Supt. Rebecca Montoya-Kostro.
“Even the principal said she did not smell anything. But then around 9:30 [a.m.], we had students and even a couple of teachers who said they had headaches and were not feeling so well,” Montoya-Kostro said.
Twenty-three pupils were taken to area hospitals, and the remaining 200 were evacuated to nearby Roosevelt Junior High School, 2501 Oak St., where they waited for their parents to pick them up.
Ten Wilson pupils became sick while waiting at Roosevelt and were taken to hospitals.
Less than a mile from Wilson, at Lincoln Elementary School, 3420 Jackson St., Principal Bernice Biggs said teachers and pupils began to smell fumes around 9:30 a.m. The smell got worse, and by 10:30, one teacher had become ill. Forty children were taken to hospitals. Biggs evacuated the school at 11:10 a.m., calling parents to pick up children who had become ill.
The remaining pupils were kept outside the school on a playground. Yellow police tape across an opening in the parking lot kept the children from leaving.
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“It started out as extra recess and we just kept it going,” Biggs said. Children were given their lunch of hamburgers, french fries, cookies and chocolate milk outside. When the 3 p.m. dismissal bell rang, teachers lifted the tape, and about 30 pupils who remained were allowed to walk home.
Reginald Looney, 33, said he got a call from Lincoln saying he needed to pick up his son, 3rd-grader Reginald Looney II, from school. Looney left work and arrived at Lincoln about 2:30 p.m.
“They just called and said, `Come and pick up your kid,’ without telling me anything,” Looney said.