150 Cardinal Mooney High School Students Quarantined

BayNews 9 has just reported that some 150 students at Cardinal Mooney High School in Sarasota are being "quarantined" after potential exposure to mercury poisoning and three are being "decontaminated" by a county Haz-Mat team.

The station didn't provide additional details, and a story posted at 12:37 on the Sarasota Herald-Tribune Website added nothing to our report.


UPDATE

The Bradenton Herald, which we notified about the BayNews 9 story at 12:16pm, has a fullish story on the Web now, posted at 1:08pm:


Posted on Tue, Aug. 15, 2006

Mercury scare shuts down Cardinal Mooney High School
RICHARD DYMOND
Herald Staff Writer
SARASOTA- Cardinal Mooney High School was shut down today after it was discovered a student brought a quantity of mercury onto the campus.

Most of the 500 students, drawn from Manatee and Sarasota counties, were told to go home.

School officials learned about the mercury today, which apparently was brought onto campus, located on Fruitville Road, Monday and stored in a student's locker. Several students may have also touched or played with the toxic element.

"We understand that some of it may have spilled today when they were playing with it," said Sandra MacLeod, medical executive director of the Sarasota County Health Department.

As many as 150 students may have been detained for testing for mercury exposure. All of those except about 10 were subsequently released.

"We believe it was a bottle with several ounces of mercury," MacLeod said.

American Compliance Technology from Bartow was summoned to conduct an analysis on the mercury and test the students for health hazards.

Also on the scene this afternoon is a Sarasota County environmental team, law enforcement and firefighters.

John Mylett, a 17-year-old senior from Mill Creek in East Manatee, was among those tested and cleared.

Mylett was the students were in isolation for three hours without knowing what why.

"We thought it might be something to do with the chemistry lab," he said.