ICS provides details on Thursday church incident
Immaculate Conception School officials provided clarity to a situation involving a few students during an all-school service in the church on Thursday.
“Every Thursday, all ICS students in grades K-8 attend mass,” and email from the school states. “Along with all the students and teachers, there were approximately 20 other adults in the church building. During mass, the AC units were not working so there was a company working on them at the time.”
The email continued to explain that one ICS student fainted as a result of seeing blood on a student next to them who had picked a scab.
“This one student was unconscious for a very brief time and did fall to the floor,” the email states. “This was witnessed by many and can be a very traumatic experience for young people. The student was taken care of by several guests with a medical background and was wheeled out of church to the school, where their parent was called.”
Another student who was sitting by their mother in church felt light-headed, but did not faint, the email adds.
“There was one student that vomited and then left the church building. This student was a sibling of the student that fainted and was very upset,” the email states.
ICS said that after the church service, six students came to the school office.
“One said they had a headache (they did not eat any breakfast),” the email stated. “The other five students were very upset and shaken up. All of these five students were back in their classrooms within 10 minutes and later eating in the cafeteria and playing at recess like nothing had happened.”
After mass, the AC company checked for any type of gas leak from the unit and detected nothing, ICS said.
The Columbia Fire Department checked the church on Thursday evening and did not detect any type of gas leak, ICS said.
“They also returned this morning and did not detect any type of gas leak. Ameren also came this morning and did not detect any type of gas leak,” the ICS email states. “There was never a gas leak in the church building yesterday and all students, staff and guests were never in any danger.”
