School Bus Didn’t Cause Players’ Ills Blood, Bus Tests Find No Evidence Of Gas Leak

Three separate tests have eliminated a Cusick school bus as the cause of an illness that caused most of the junior high girls volleyball team to vomit on the way back from a match at Wellpinit.

Although carbon monoxide poisoning was suspected at first, no exhaust gas leak was found in inspections by the district’s bus superintendent, a Washington State Patrol vehicle inspector and an Educational Service District 101 industrial hygienist.

Blood tests on three of the dozen or so students who got sick found no evidence of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Shortly after the bus returned to Cusick on Oct. 16, five of 17 girls on the bus were treated at Newport Community Hospital for headache, nausea and abdominal cramping. Physician’s Assistant Ed Brown said all five got better within 30 to 70 minutes.

Brown had no way to conduct carbon monoxide tests at that hour, but he suspected carbon monoxide poisoning and administered the standard oxygen treatment.

“It was sure suspicious,” he said, except for the fact that none of the girls had the “beet red” faces usually associated with carbon monoxide victims.

The cause of the illness may never be known, but Dr. Paul Stehr-Green, the state epidemiologist, said the case has many of the earmarks of a phenomenon known as “group psychosis.”

“I’ve heard this repeated multiple times over the years,” he said. “This has been seen predominantly among young girls in closed settings, like a factory or a bus or something like that. It is usually triggered by smells.”

Several of the Cusick Junior High victims said they noticed a strange smell, which some described as propane, before they began getting sick.

One 12-year-old said she and other team members noticed the odor after a rest stop at Loon Lake on the winding bus ride back from Wellpinit.

They dismissed it, and some of them went to sleep at the back of the bus.

About 20 minutes later, the girl said, two girls woke up and vomited.

“One by one, everybody started getting sick,” she said.

That’s what happened in similar incidents that were studied exhaustively without finding any physical reason for the illnesses, Stehr-Green said.

“They really do feel sick and they really may feel that they were exposed to something - and they may have been - but it also may be the power of suggestion,” he said.

He said vomiting is not ordinarily associated with carbon monoxide poisoning.

The quick onset of symptoms and the relatively quick recovery of the Cusick victims argues against other possible causes such as food or water poisoning, he added.

Washington State Patrol Officer Cliff Rogers, regional director of commercial vehicle inspections, said he found nothing wrong with the bus exhaust system.

Rogers said he was told “there was apparently some tension between the older girls and the younger girls, and the younger girls were upset, so that may have led to some of the nerves and upset stomachs.”

Cusick Superintendent Charles Crickman declined to talk about that, but said the district did everything it could to make sure the bus was safe before putting it back in service last week.

Seals around the rear door were replaced and the tailpipe was moved from the rear of the bus to the left side to get it out of an area where gases could be sucked inside.

Even before those changes, the bus was safe, said Eric Dickson, an industrial hygienist who studies health and safety hazards for Educational Service District 101.

He said a series of tests with a carbon monoxide meter found levels comparable to what could be expected on a city street corner.

, DataTimes