Mystery Still Swirls At Eiland Middle School

LOUISVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) – Late Thursday afternoon, the National Guard rolled into Eiland Middle School in Louisville.

A specialized team is checking the school out after dozens of students, faculty, and staff began showing up at Winston Medical Center with similar symptoms.

We actually reached out to several parents whose children left school with that unknown sickness, but had no luck hearing back.

Over a dozen of students have been treated for similar symptoms, after being exposed to something investigators are still trying to figure out.

It all started here, in the 8th grade hall at Eiland Middle School.

Several students. Similar symptoms. But, why?

“We have had an exposure situation here, where we’ve had several of the students, teachers, and even first responders exposed to some undetermined chemical. At this time, we have suspicions that it’s going to be secondary to vaping products, but right now, we do not have confirmation,” says Winston County EMA Director, Buddy King.

Whatever the mysterious substance may be, it’s sending dozens to Winston Medical Center.

“Over the last two days, it looks like we’ve seen close to 50. We saw about 24 yesterday and we saw 15 so far today, and we may have seen some prior to yesterday,” says Winston Medical Center CEO, Paul Black.

Although several students left school sick, class has been in session all week.

Louisville School District Superintendent Randy Grierson says that decision came after several agencies made the recommendation.

“We isolated that one hall. No one went in it. We redirected classes to where it would not affect anywhere around that whole area and that was the primary reason for it. Considering it was localized in the same area and students were in other areas and we’re not affected at all,” said Superintendent Grierson.

The superintendent says the unknown is the scary part and that’s causing widespread speculation.

“Gas leak, carbon monoxide leak, and all of those things have been addressed and I want to listen to every parent that calls and I’ve had probably 100 phone calls this morning and all I can promise them is were doing everything in our power to get this to find out what the catalyst of this is to make sure our kids have a safe place to come to school,” said Grierson.

Grierson says a couple of students who have shown symptoms admitted to taking some kind of vaping substance.

However, the district is still taking every safety measure, including bringing extra resources.

“The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency is involved as well. The Mississippi Department of Health. Atmos Energy helped us out. They tested for carbon monoxide and methane yesterday, and it was all within normal limits, so we’re taking a multi, multiple approach to this,” said Grierson.

“It’s treatable with all we know right now, but I think there’s still a lot of unanswered questions. I don’t know for sure. I know we’ve sent labs down to UMCC to get some definitive answers on what was in the substance, so until we know that, there’s no long-term or definitive answer to what’s going on.”

The superintendent says two the students taken to UMMC in Jackson, tested negative for drugs and had pre-existing conditions.