Chatfield High School will reopen Monday morning after something in the air sickened students and staff and cancelled classes Friday afternoon.
The cause hasn’t been found, but there’s an outside chance it was an old can of Mace that a student sprayed on campus sometime earlier, authorities said Sunday.
“We talked to a student who said he accidentally sprayed a little from an old can of Mace,” said Jim Shires, a spokesman for the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department. “But there’s nothing that can prove conclusively that’s what made people sick.”
The student was not charged. A decision has not been yet been made concerning punishment by the school, however, said spokeswoman Lynn Setzer.
“This is a new development, so we haven’t had time yet to make that decision, but I suspect it will be made on Monday,” she said this afternoon. “It is considered a weapon, and they’re not supposed to have it at school.”
She said tests over the weekend found nothing that could have caused the sudden respiratory problems, however.
“We let in fresh air, we ran the air-conditioning all weekend to filter the air, and our environmental engineers went back in this morning,” she said. “They found absolutely nothing that was toxic at all, and they felt no effects from being in there.”
Twenty-five students and staff members at the Littleton school were seen about and released from local hospitals Friday afternoon.
The episode was limited to people in a corner of the cafeteria, where a freshman orientation session was taking place, Setzer said.
The school was evacuated and parents were summoned by a reverse-911 message.
West Metro Fire Rescue operated a decontamination station in the school parking lot, where gasping students and adults were stripped, showered and given new clothes, before they were taken to hospitals.
About 500 students and 150 faculty and staff were on campus at the time, when classes where cancelled and students sent home about 1:30 p.m.
Joey Bunch: 303-954-1174 or jbunch@denverpost.com
