Scary Day!

Yea... this happened at Blake's school yesterday. I didn't get a call from the school, I saw it LIVE on the noon news! I texted Blake, asked him if he was OK, he had no clue what I was talking about! The school didn't say a word to the kids. At about 1pm, Blake texted me and said "Where are you?!?" I told him that I was at home. He told me "you need to come and pick me up, we are at the Gantzel campus" ....I drove down to pick him up, and there was chaos everywhere. Parents were upset and yelling because the school made NO phone calls to let parents know what was going on. Parents were finding out from their kids that were locked down in a gym, in the dark. There were cops everywhere, trying to keep the peace. I finally got Blake checked out after standing in 2 different lines for about an hour. Pretty scary stuff...

Here is the news report from azfamily.com -

QUEEN CREEK – One student is under arrest and half a dozen others are injured after an explosion at a Valley school.

Hazmat crews converged on J.O. Combs Middle School in Queen Creek on Monday after a student allegedly set off a home-made explosive device on campus.

It happened as students were headed to class. A total of eight students were treated by paramedics at the school. Three of them were then sent to area hospitals with chemical-type burns after police tell 3TV a 15-year old 9th-grader brought an improvised explosive device to school and set it off. Almost 100 students were around him.

Ashley, a student, tells 3TV, “It was a big boom…something went off.”
That big boom happened at the basketball courts at Combs Middle School as students were arriving for class.

Pinal County Chief Deputy Steve Henry tells 3TV, “When the device exploded first impression by school staff was, they thought it was a chemical experiment gone awry.”
Nevertheless, when they found out a 15-year-old student brought the device to school and that students had been burned by it, a criminal investigation began.

Henry also tells 3TV, “The device about five Ozof Hydroxide and a metal chemical reacted, mixed together. It could have been much worse.”
Hazmat crews from the region descended on the school as students remained in lockdown.

Elizabeth Burnell, a student, says, “They said it was on basketball court, then our security guard came in and searched the trash cans to make sure we were all okay.”
As crews entered the school to determine whether there was more than one device, parents were waiting anxiously a mile down the road where students were eventually transported to be picked up.

The parents’ concern was that the incident happened before school began yet they were not alerted until many hours later. One parent admits, “I'm ready to send her to a new school.”
Authorities are serving a search warrant on the student’s home to see if a second device was created. These are serious felony charges that student, albeit a minor, is looking at.

Meanwhile the school has been decontaminated. There will be school on Tuesday.