All students home from hospital after chlorine malfunction in St. Augustine Prep pool
Two days after a chemical problem in the St. Augustine Preparatory Academy pool sent 21 students to Children's Wisconsin, the last two hospitalized children were released home Wednesday, the hospital reported.
A spokesperson for the school said it appears a valve controlling the flow of chlorine malfunctioned, causing excessive chlorination and rapid deterioration of air quality.
The children were having respiratory problems when they were transported to the hospital Monday, according to Milwaukee Fire Battalion Chief Andrew Hargarten.
Thirteen of the 21 children left Children's on Monday without being admitted. Six left Tuesday and two were released Wednesday in good condition, according to a hospital spokesperson, who did not share their ages or further information about injuries.
“Generally, everyone did seem to be in pretty good condition when they were transported,” Hargarten said when asked whether the children were all conscious, according to a recording of a press conference.
St. Augustine Preparatory Academy, at 2607 S. 5th Street, is a private school serving about 1,500 students from kindergarten through 12th grade.
A spokesperson for the school said staff are working to understand what happened. They said the pool's chemical levels were checked Monday morning, as they are each day, and appeared to be normal.
"We are working hard with our maintenance contractors to complete a thorough evaluation so we can understand better what happened and prevent a future occurrence," the spokesperson said in an email.
Around 12:39 p.m. Monday, while students were participating in a swim class, the buildup of chlorine compromised the air and the pool was evacuated. A hazmat team responded to ventilate the pool and monitor the area for about an hour, Hargarten said.
Students were transported to Children's by the fire department and private ambulances, Hargarten said. Families whose children were not transported to Children’s were also encouraged to seek medical evaluation "as an added precaution," according to a school spokesperson.
"Our prayers are with all our students, families and staff who were impacted by this sudden and unexplained event," a spokesperson for the school said in an email.
In response to the incident, Children's Hospital released a statement saying it opened a command center for a patient surge process in its emergency and trauma departments. The hospital said it had enough staff to handle the influx of patients.
The school maintenance staff and pool company are following up on how the exposure happened, Hargarten said. He said the pool was the only room in the school impacted, as it has a separate ventilation system.
Though rare, public pools have history of 'chlorine clouds'
Pool chemicals cause thousands of injuries annually. In a three-year period, 2015-2017, pool chemical injuries resulted in about 13,500 emergency department visits and zero deaths, according to research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Most incidents occur in private residences, the CDC found, but some public pools have also had problems, including incidents of “chlorine gas clouds.” In such cases, chlorine entered the air because malfunctions caused extremely high concentrations in the water or because of faulty mixing with other chemicals:
Earlier this year, at a waterpark near the Smoky Mountains, guests were hospitalized after a chlorinator malfunctioned and released too much chlorine in the water, which formed a visible cloud, according to local station WBIR.
At a neighborhood pool in San Jose in 2018, a maintenance worker erroneously mixed a cleaning acid with chlorine in the pump room, causing a gas cloud over the pool that sent swimmers to the hospital, according to the Mercury News.
In 2017, children in Tampa were hospitalized from a pool where a power outage had stopped the water pump earlier in the day, causing a buildup of chlorine and a cleaning acid that were then released and formed a cloud, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
In a study of 155 chlorine inhalation injuries at nine public pools in California 2008-2015, the most common symptoms were respiratory problems, vomiting and eye irritation. Only five were hospitalized for more than 24 hours.
Contact Elliot Hughes at elliot.hughes@jrn.com or 414-704-8958. Follow him on Twitter @elliothughes12.
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Students leave hospital after chlorine malfunction at Aug Prep pool
