300 Flee Store After Release of Pepper Spray : Evacuation: At least eight people are taken to hospitals and seven others are treated at the scene after complaining of dizziness, nausea. Officers think a canister of the self-defense substance was emptied.

As many as 300 Christmas shoppers were evacuated from a Target store Tuesday after someone apparently released pepper spray. At least eight people were rushed to hospitals, and seven others were treated at the scene.

Fire officials received a 911 call just after 5:30 p.m. reporting an unknown substance causing respiratory problems, Orange County Fire Department spokeswoman Emmy Day said.

Customers and clerks in an area of the store between the garden supply and auto parts departments, where seasonal displays are stacked, “started complaining of dizziness, nausea and a pungent odor,” Day said.

“It appears it was pepper spray,” said Sheriff’s Lt. Rex Hatch. “Somebody took a canister of pepper spray on one of the aisles and sprayed it out.” The pepper spray is intended for used in self-defense.

Hatch said that whoever released the spray must have brought it into the store.

Virginia Knuttila, 57, of San Clemente said she was “shopping in the Christmas section and all of a sudden I felt real sick, coughing and burning and I felt like I was going to pass out.”

She said a store employee helped her out of the building, and paramedics rushed her to Saddleback Memorial Medical Center. “I’m still not feeling that chipper,” Knuttila said nearly four hours later.

Knuttila said she didn’t see the gas, nor did she see anyone spray it.

Tony Yrei, a 27-year-old salesman in the toy department, which is near auto parts, said that suddenly, “I was choking. I started coughing. . . . I saw quite a few people coughing.”

Yrei, who has worked at Target for seven years, said he and the others affected walked out of the store: “No one fell on the ground. They all got out on their own steam.”

After being taken to the emergency room at Saddleback Memorial, Yrei was released.

“I’m feeling OK,” he said.

About 25 firefighters, medics, five ambulances and hazardous materials personnel responded to the shopping center in the 24500 block of Alicia Parkway, not far from the Santa Ana Freeway.

Three people who were inside the store at the time were taken to Irvine Medical Center, Day said. Two of them remained at the hospital Tuesday night in stable condition, a spokeswoman said.

Four others went to Saddleback Memorial and one to Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center. They were all treated and released. Of the seven people treated at the scene, Day said, “all reported very mild coughing and irritation to upper respiratory areas.”

Those sent to the hospital were said to have “mild discomfort,” Day said, with the exception of one man who had reported an existing asthmatic condition. The man, who was not identified, had a moderate reaction to the substance.

Hazmat officials classified the incident as moderate, sending four investigators in silver hazardous-materials suits to investigate. They arrived about 7 p.m. and within half an hour declared the area safe for sheriff’s investigators to enter. Together with store officials, the detectives viewed surveillance tapes, hoping to determine who released the spray.

However, “an initial viewing of the surveillance tapes has not turned up anything,” Lt. Hatch said. He said investigators will look at the tape again today.