School Closed for Cleanup After Scare Over Mercury

A Santa Ana junior high school where three boys deliberately ingested mercury Wednesday will remain closed today while a hazardous-materials team removes the element from school grounds.

“We wanted to give ample time for a thorough cleanup of the campus,” Garden Grove Unified School District spokesman Alan Trudell said.

A four-member emergency response team from the Orange County Health Care Agency and workers from a private firm hired by the school district spent much of Thursday assessing the levels of mercury contamination remaining on the campus.

The substance they found was confined to a few areas, including a trash can where students disposed of some of the liquid, a bathroom where they washed the element from their bodies, and a trash can in the principal’s office where the substance was stored until emergency authorities removed it, Trudell said.

“It was confined to only a few areas where we thought it might be,” Trudell said. “There were no surprises.”

Three students at Stephen R. Fitz Intermediate School ate the mercury on potato chips to impress their friends Wednesday after a seventh-grader brought six ounces of the liquid to school. They were rushed to Fountain Valley Regional Hospital and Medical Center, where they were monitored and released. Two girls also believed to have ingested the substance were later taken to the hospital by their parents. They, too, were soon released.

A total of 145 students were screened for mercury at the scene with a machine that resembles a metal detector, Trudell said. Several who showed signs of the element on their bodies had to shower at the school and change clothes. The campus has been closed since the incident.

Four members of the county’s hazardous-materials team and three from the Anaheim-based firm Hazmat Services swept every room at the school with a mercury vapor sensor, said Denise Fennessy, program manager of the hazardous materials compliance section of the Orange County Health Care Agency.

Fennessy said her team would remain at the school until the cleanup by the private contractor is complete. “This is a situation where we want to . . . oversee their evaluation measures and their cleanup measures,” she said.

The county team borrowed a large vacuum to suck up the liquid, Fennessy said. “They’ll use the vacuum when they find [mercury] in the area. Then they’ll monitor it again to make sure it is clean,” she said.

Trudell said the private contractor can also use an amalgam that resembles kitty litter to absorb the mercury if necessary.

Health experts said the element poses few health risks if it is ingested in small amounts in its liquid form, which is what the students came into contact with. If mercury is heated and allowed to vaporize, it can cause lung damage.

The student who brought the mercury to school obtained it from an uncle, Trudell said. The student has not been named by school or emergency officials.

No disciplinary action has been taken against the student, although the matter is still under consideration, Trudell said. “From what all indications show, it was simply an unwise judgment with no intent to harm,” he said. “The young man just made a poor decision, and he’s learned a very powerful lesson.”

Fennessy said there have been four or five similar situations in the last 15 years. Mercury in liquid form, found in small amounts in thermometers and barometers, has a unique viscosity and sheen that can tempt children despite the risks.

“It is kind of an interesting element,” Fennessy said. She suggested that young people who are curious about mercury view it at science or children’s museums.