A total of 17 students and a teacher were injured when a high school science experiment in Tennessee went wrong, sparking a flash fire that caused the entire building to be evacuated.
Hendersonville Fire Chief Scotty Bush said that the students were initially treated at Merrol Hyde Magnet School in Hendersonville, Tennessee, before nine students and the teacher were transported to local hospitals, according to WKRN.com.
The students were taken to TriStar Hendersonville Medical Center and Vanderbilt University Children's Hospital, while the teacher was treated at Vanderbilt Medical Center with non-critical injuries.
Sumner County school director Del Phillips and Bush said the accident was caused by an unintentional chemical reaction, WKRN.com reported.
The demonstration resulted in a sudden flash fire lasting three to five seconds with some students receiving second-degree burns, officials said.
"None of the children were actually doused with the chemicals," Dr. Berchaun Nicholls, an emergency room physician at TriStar Henderson, said of the children treated there, per WRKN-TV. "It didn't stay on the body long. Any time you have any kind of chemical injury you do want to safely get your clothes off and try to wash off and irrigate as quickly as possible."
Bush said the cause of the fire remains under investigation, but stressed that it was "an accident," The Tennessean newspaper reported. WRKN-TV wrote that according to reports, the fire may have been caused by mixing boric acid and alcohol.
"We had a quick response," Bush said, according to the newspaper. "I know that's terrifying to some of the parents at home but . . . your kids are safe and we've got the other ones transported."
Bush credited the teacher and school staff for acting quickly and appropriately, first extinguishing the fire and then evacuating the school.
Phillips told WRKN-TV that the school would reopen Thursday morning on a normal schedule.
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