PACIFIC BEACH — Mission Bay High School (MBHS) remained on lockdown as of 3 p.m. today because a male student brought mercury to the campus and contaminated parts of the school, said San Diego Fire Department spokesman Maurice Luque. Approximately 1,600 students remain locked inside the school, said MBHS principal Fred Hilgers. Parents may not pick up their children until school is off lockdown, and officials have not released a time when that will happen. Mercury is a silver metal in the form of liquid at normal temperatures, and is known to be highly-poisonous. Seven students and one teacher were exposed, Luque said. Two of the students tested had high readings and both were given showers and fresh clothes to ward off the contamination. The fire department is on the scene and a San Diego County Hazmat crew has checked 11 rooms for contamination. Two of those rooms, a computer room and a science room, had high readings. Carpets in one of the contaminated rooms were removed and the heat was turned up in the room to vaporize the mercury. As of 2:45 p.m., officials were checking an additional 140 students for contamination. Each of those students had entered the contaminated rooms at some point in the morning. Two other schools in the San Diego Unified School District, Toler Elementary School and Bay Park Elementary School, are also on lockdown at this time because the bus carrying the student who brought the mercury also transported students to those schools. Officials are checking for contamination on those campuses as well. Hazmat officials determined that the bus driver, who is from southeast San Diego, was also contaminated. His house was being checked for contamination as of 2:45 p.m. The mercury was reported to school officials just before 11 a.m. when the student reportedly showed an ROTC instructor the open mercury on a sheet of paper. “It was a great pick-up by the teacher,” Hilgers said. He added that the school had coincidentally completed safety training on Monday, Oct. 4. Hilgers also had to be tested for contamination because he had entered one of the contaminated rooms. He said he was fine and showed no contamination. Hilgers remained in direct contact with city officials, who are not allowing the school to feed the students because of the ongoing contamination investigation. The school was placed on lockdown prior to lunchtime. However, Hilgers said, the cafeteria staff was ready to feed the students as soon as they can. He said that his students will not go home hungry. “We are taking small groups of kids to the bathroom,” Hilgers said. The students were at first not allowed to use restrooms, as it is protocol for lockdown. Officials do not believe that the mercury was brought to the school with malicious intent, but rather as something of a curiosity to show to others. The student’s name has not been released. “He’s very upset about the distress he’s put all of his friends and his school through,” Hilgers said. “We already have a plan in place for dismissal,” Hilgers said.
