Crystal Lake Cental High School

I went to Crystal Lake Central High School to pick something up and found all the students out on the lawn.

It wasn’t a bad day from the point of view of temperature or participation, so they were talking to each other.

I asked one of the teachers what had happened to set off the alarms for a fire drill and was told that it was something in a chemistry lab.

Boy, did that bring back memories.

In 1963 I was sitting in chemistry lab in a room that is now used for registration right down the hall from the office complex nest to the boys bathroom.

Bill McCormick, our teacher asked me for a gram of magnesium.

Mistakenly, I gave him ten grams.

He lit it and woosh, a pillar of smoke filled the room, causing us to evacuate.

I don’t remember the whole school being evacuated, but we certainly left the room.

This week’s chemical problem was caused not by a student, but by a teacher.

Here’s the description of the incident that District 155 sent:

A teacher was cleaning up in a prep room after a lab and chemicals inadvertently mixed.

No students were present.

No one was hurt.

Students and staff evacuated when the alarm went off.

The fire department investigated and allowed students and staff to return to the building.