Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Class Puts Thoughts on Fume Scare Into Writing

Cassandra Mattei labeled it “A Horrible Day.”

The 9-year-old Lincoln Elementary School student wrote a paragraph in class Tuesday about how it felt to be evacuated the day before during a fume scare that sent more than 60 pupils to local hospitals.

The writing assignment in teacher Anna Ortega’s fourth-grade class was intended to help students get back to a normal routine. Cassandra, like many students, found herself trying to spell unfamiliar words to describe an unfamiliar situation.

“One day we were working on math when suddenly our class herd from our speaker ‘Please evaporate the building,’ ” she wrote. “I was scared because I didn’t know what was going on. We went outside to line up when suddenly fire trucks were coming into our school.”

Sheriff’s detectives said they presume the fumes spread through air-conditioning vents from a device--fireworks, a stink bomb or something similar--detonated in the boys’ bathroom. A student turned in an unexploded firework he said he had found nearby but no fireworks debris or other evidence of an explosion was found.

Firefighters said many of the children appeared to be suffering from psychosomatic hysteria, made sick because they were frightened to see other children acting sick.

Students taken to local hospitals, complaining of nausea and burning sensations in their mouths and chests, were released after treatment. Some were given oxygen. Authorities said no lasting effects are expected.

Ortega said her students were “a little more talkative and hyperactive” than normal Tuesday, what with the strangers with television cameras and notebooks still lurking around the school.

Nick Blakestad, 9, was taken to a hospital complaining of nausea after using a drinking fountain next to the bathroom.

“I didn’t like being sick,” he said.

Principal Alyce Ellis visited all of the classrooms Tuesday, talking about the incident with students and warning that the student or students responsible for creating the fumes will be expelled from the Lancaster School District.

“We can’t have that kind of behavior at Lincoln, can we, because we spent five years trying to get a good school,” she told Ortega’s class.

Ellis also asked students in Ortega’s class to share their thoughts about the evacuation. Most of the students’ comments were similar.

“I was scared because I thought I would get it,” said Katie Montana, 9. Another 9-year-old student said she was “scared because no one would tell me what was going on.”

An all-school assembly was planned, but Ellis said she believed that meeting with smaller groups of students would be more productive.

“With smaller groups you get more of a feeling for the children’s feelings,” she said.

Lt. Tom Pigott, commander of the detective bureau at the Antelope Valley Sheriff’s Station, said deputies are looking for a culprit, but if it was a student prank, “the likelihood we’re going to prosecute anybody is pretty slim.”