Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, December 21, 1993 TAG: 9312210135
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ADRIENNE PETTY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ROCKY MOUNT LENGTH: Medium
Gregory Summers, 14, was snickering so hard his friends joked that the nurses had put laughing gas in the needle with which they drew his blood.
But for a short time, about 30 students on a school bus headed from Snow Creek School to Franklin feared for their lives as they were almost overcome by potentially hazardous carbon monoxide fumes.
"Everybody on the bus was panicking, jumping up on the seats," said Josh Bauman, 13.
Students screamed, jerked the windows up and stuck their heads out for air as clouds of smoke swept through the bus and a stream of antifreeze about two inches deep started creeping up the aisle, Summers recounted.
Luckily, the bus driver was near the school system's bus garage. She parked, ushered the students onto a safe bus and proceeded to the middle school, Associate Superintendent Florella Johnson said.
Once the students arrived at Franklin, school administrators called their parents, and the school nurse instructed two of the children who showed more serious symptoms to go to Wolfe Medical Group, Johnson said.
About 20 other parents took their children to Franklin Memorial Hospital, where nurses monitored their blood-gas levels for a few hours.
Although some complained of nausea, burning eyes and hives, most of the students seen there were relatively unaffected by the fumes, Hospital Administrator Bud Thompson said.
School Board officials couldn't tell parents much more about the incident, except thay they said the antifreeze started leaking from a heating unit in the rear of the bus after a water hose broke.
Memo: ***CORRECTION***