Fort Rucker students return to campus after mystery illness

Fort Rucker Elementary School’s 380 students, along with faculty and staff, returned to campus Tuesday after a mystery illness affecting a third of its fifth graders led officials to close its doors last Monday, Sept. 19.

Three classes of fifth graders at the school were affected with 24 of 74 total students in that grade becoming ill on Sept. 16 while on the playground, said Cindy Gibson with Department of Defense Education Activity public affairs.

“They are back in school and happy to be back in their familiar surroundings. They did well last week, too. They are very resilient,” said Gibson. “They really only missed one day of school which was Monday (Sept. 19) because Tuesday was a teacher workday.”

Fort Rucker Primary School was not affected other than having second graders attend classes there from Wednesday, Sept. 21 through Monday, Sept. 26.

Gibson said 11 of the 24 sickened students were taken to two area hospitals while the other 13 students went home with parents. She said those taken to hospitals were evaluated for heat exhaustion/injury—which was the first reasoning for the sudden sickness—as well as food poisoning, infectious diseases and allergies. All suspected causes were ruled out, she said, adding that no adults exhibited any symptoms.

Gibson said air samples and water samples of an outside water source used by the students were taken and all of those tests came back okay.

“They took air samples on two different occasions. They took water samples from four outdoor water faucets where the children drink while they are on the playground and everything was well within normal limits,” said Gibson, adding that Lyster Army Health Clinic officials have now taken soil samples from the playground for testing.

“They are sending (the soil and vegetation samples) off to a lab right away. So, in the meantime, the students won’t be on the playground. They will do their physical education and recess in the gymnasium,” Gibson explained, adding, “Our number one priority is the safety of our students and faculty and staff. So, we will continue searching for an answer and that includes doing the soil sampling and as soon as those are back maybe we will have a better idea. We will be in touch with parents to let them know.”

All students have fully recovered and are back in school, Gibson confirmed.