Pandemonium As 13 Lagos Students Collapse After Inhaling Gaseous Emission

Posted by African Examiner Featured, Latest Headlines, News Thursday, March 6th, 2014

Ayo Balogun, Lagos

…School, Shopping Mall Shut

Pandemonium struck on Thursday afternoon at the Ogba Junior Grammar School, Lagos, Nigeria as 13 students collapsed after inhaling toxic gaseous substance released into the school’s premises.

It has not been unraveled how the dangerous chemical substance found its way into the school premises housing students less than 16 years of age. 12 female and one male students suddenly collapsed and fainted around 1.00 pm when the chemical substance found its way into the compound.

There was chaos in one of the classes after students started collapsing and getting fainted. There was a rush to get out of the classroom by the students before more would collapse.

Late last year, the same incident occurred in the same school when 25 students collapsed and became unconscious after inhaling the deadly substance, with the same scenario playing out itself on Thursday.

Officials of the Lagos Emergency Management Agency, LASEMA, National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, Lagos Ambulance Services, LASAMBUS, Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency, LASEPA, State Environmental Health Monitoring Unit, SEHMU and the police were at the scene to rescue victims of the gaseous emission.

The affected students were immediately rushed to the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, LASUTH, where they were placed on emergency treatment.

The school was shut by LASEMA, with all students, teachers and others evacuated while the Ogba Shopping Arcade, housing Ecobank, hundreds of shops and some companies was also shut as no one knows where the gaseous substance emanated from.

The gaseous substance was said to have emanated from the administrative block of the school sharing the same fence with the shopping mall, fueling speculation that dangerous chemicals were being sold at the mall.

An old woman was seen wailing as her child was among the affected students while another man was seen running helter and skelter, searching for his child who was in the class when the incident occured.

Some of the names of the affected students are Memuna Tijani, Subeadat Oladokun, Taiwo Adebiyi, Rodiat Muiz, Omolade Ogunbami, Blessing Onaigbe, Karimot Akiyode, Modupe Idowu and Rasak Gbolahan.

General Manager, LASEMA Dr. Femi Oke-Osanyintolu confirmed that 13 of the affected students taken to LASUTH were responding to treatment.

“They are responding to treatment very well, but however, we have condoned off the school and the building associated with that area. Why we are doing that is to allow us carry out risk assessment and analysis on the place. We are appealing to our people not to panic that the state is on top of the challenges.

“What we are doing is that we are carrying out an operation and after we might have carried out the operation, we will go into specific and compare issues with what happened the last time when the same thing occur in the same school. We try to localize it and we have brought the expert and they are working on it, we brought LASEPA that are experts on this and they are working. They are with us here and at the general hospital. People should remain calm,” said.

“Some of the victims are responding very well, they sustain some injuries, the doctor needs to assess them to give us the comprehensive thing of what is happening to them. My own job is to respond to the operation. I cannot give you the extent or the severity of the gravity; it is the doctor that can give you that. What I can assure you is that they are responding to treatment,” he added.