Posted on 11/06/2011 12:10:36 PM PST by mickeylee
Authorities in Houston are still searching for answers after an area high school football game was called off early after nearly two dozen fans were hospitalized after suddenly becoming sick in the stands of Barnett Stadium on Friday night.
During the second half of the game between Austin (Texas) High and Houston (Texas) Yates, many members of the band and dance team from Austin started suffering from nausea, vomiting and dizziness and began collapsing in the stands, according to numerous media reports.
Officials feared they had been exposed to some type of biohazard and called hazmet teams to the scene but no traces of gases or chemical agents were found.
Nevertheless, the stadium was cleared and the game was called with Yates leading, 47-14.
The students, many complaining of nausea, were sent for more medical evaluation.
"We ended up with 22 students being transported to five different hospitals," Houston Fire Department assistant chief David Almaguer told the local FOX affiliate, KTRK-TV.
Food poisoning of some sort remains a possibility for the incident, but initially appears unlikely as those who were sick ate different meals at different times in different places before the game.
"The kids all ate at different places, some of them ate at different times ... but they did have something in their stomachs," Emergency Medical Services doctor David Purse told the station. "At this point, it remains a little unclear what set it off."
Officials, however, aren't taking any chances. A football game scheduled to be played there on Saturday afternoon has been moved to another location.
Well if I was an Austin fan and Yates was beating our team 47 to 11, I’d start feeling a bit queazy too!
Marvin Z, we miss you.
I’m a sympathetic puker. I see someone throw up and I instantly want to do the same.
Obammy & the wookie on the Jumbotron.
Flash mob?
I saw this happen on a large scale at the Atlanta Merchandise mart in 1996. Almost everyone on the 6th floor during a show in January were stricken with terrible flu symptoms within a few minutes of each other.
My wife was taken to a doc in the box as were several others, the doctors considered legionairs syndrome, but it turned out to be the flu. Everyone was affected and it wasn’t pretty.
Strange things happen.
Hopefully the cause will be determined soon.
Seeing someone else toss their cookies has a tendency to make you want to do the same. Start with one kid and you get a chain reaction.
I didn’t used to be. I was tough as nails and cleaned up a lot of nastiness in various job roles in my teens and twenties.
Then I decided to marry and make babies in my thirties so I quit smoking and my sense of smell came back with a vengeance.
Some days I threaten to take back up smoking so I don’t have to smell anymore.
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