Fish Guts Causes School To Be Evacuated *BichonFriseOwner

Fish guts stink up school

By Brian Kelly / Staff Writer Thursday, May 29, 2003



A suspected senior prank caused classes to be moved out of the main building at Lexington High School for almost the entire day because of a stench coming from the hallways.

On Tuesday morning, students and teachers evacuated the main building where most classes are held at the Waltham Street school, and a professional cleanup crew as well as the Lexington Fire Department were dispatched to help deodorize the scene.

Lexington High School Principal Ernest Van Seasholes said that while school was not canceled, the sickening smell caused a clear disruption to normal activities.

"Someone brought some fowl smelling stuff into school, which was later determined to be some sort of decaying fish. It was spread on the first and second floors of the main building, and it was a very pungent smell that lingered," said the veteran principal. "We decided not to shut down school, but we had to move classes into the field house and other areas. It was really disruptive to the whole day."

While the smell was extremely unpleasant, according to Seasholes, school wasn't canceled because the Health Department determined the odor wasn't a serious danger to anyone.

Lexington Fire Captain Mike Fulton said a ladder truck was sent to the scene around 9:09 a.m.

"There was some type of noxious odor in the main building, and we were called by school officials to ventilate building and get the odor out," he said. "It was determined that it was being caused by a liquid or a substance that had been spread throughout the building."

Fulton said firefighters spent four hours at the school trying to ventilate the building by using fans on the truck.

"We have some fans that we call positive pressure ventilation fans that can be used in fire-fighting or ventilating buildings," he said. "The truck was there until about one, and then a cleanup crew was called in."

According to Seasholes, the cleanup crew spent the rest of the afternoon getting the stench out of the school's hallways.

"We tried to keep people out of the building [for the rest of the school day], but it was fine later on. They had community education classes here last night," he said. "The fire department and the cleanup crew did a great job."

Seasholes said that most schools deal with senior pranks every year, but not usually something of this magnitude. He added that there is absolutely nothing funny about what occurred at his school on Tuesday.

"We had some water balloons on [the previous] Thursday and Friday, but I thought that was the end of it. One teacher had to go to the hospital because she got sick from the smell," he said, adding the teacher is fine and was back at school the next day. "Water balloons are one thing, but [this is] something totally different. There is a history of senior pranks here and at other schools, but this doesn't qualify."

The principal said that while the students responsible may have thought they were just doing a prank, the nature of the matter is very serious, as are the consequences.

"I was disgusted with the smell and disappointed. There will be heavy penalties, including restitution for the large cost. This cost money for the fire department to come out, and for the cleanup crew," he said. "When things go wrong, it's easy to overreact. There are great kids and great teachers at this school. We know it was not a big group of kids involved, and right now we're narrowing it down."

Lexington Police Lt. Mike O'Connell said the matter is under investigation.

"We know annually they do pranks with water balloons [at Lexington High School]," he said. "This was an incident where fish guts were spread out in the hallways at the high school. Detective Dana Ham is currently investigating the matter."

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