Featured Image Credit: Glacier Valley School/Facebook/Alamy
Topics: US News, Education, Food and Drink
Poppy Bilderbeck
Topics: US News, Education, Food and Drink
Police have launched an investigation after a group of students ended up consuming floor sealant instead of milk.
A day care programme for children between the ages of five and 12 is being held this summer at Sitʼ Eeti Shaanax Glacier Valley Elementary School in Alaska.
However, on Tuesday (14 June), the school came under scrutiny after several students complained about their breakfast. It was later discovered that floor sealant was served to the children instead of milk.
The discovery was made after several students complained of a burning sensation in the back of their throats and mouths.
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One child required treatment at hospital.
Juneau police have since opened an investigation into the incident but at this moment in time, nothing 'criminal' is believed to have taken place.
However, Superintendent Bridget Weiss stated: "We do want a thorough investigation of what happened, how it happened, and they're trained investigators."
In a statement, the school district said that as soon as staff became aware of the reaction the drink was causing in the children they 'immediately directed students to stop consuming the substance'.
They then 'removed' it from the premise.
Poison control were then reportedly contacted straight away by a school official and parents were informed.
While staff served the breakfast, a contractor named NANA Management Services provided the dispenser in which all the food items and milk were sourced from.
It was later revealed that the dispenser had been loaded with floor sealant instead of milk, but that both items had very similar clear plastic bag packaging.
Superintendent Weiss reported that while police 'don't know how [it] happened,' somehow the two bags ended up on the same pallet when being transported from cardboard boxes stored in a site off campus.
"That pallet was delivered, and the assumption was that it was milk because that's what we thought was being delivered," she reflected.
As per school standards, any chemicals used in the school are reported as having a low ingestion risk and subsequently there was no chemical odour to the sealant.
The bags have since been put in hazardous storage.
As well as poison control and police being called to the school, a safety team was sent by NANA Management Services as soon as the company was alerted to the incident.
The company stated: "We are in the midst of a comprehensive investigation that will look at every contributing factor to determine exactly what happened and to identify potential safety measures."
UNILAD has contacted Sitʼ Eeti Shaanax Glacier Valley Elementary School for comment.
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