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Around 40 children took ill and started fainting during a two minutes’ silence to mark Remembrance Day at their school, in a suspected outbreak of “mass hysteria”.
The pupils were treated by paramedics at Outwood Academy in Ripon, North Yorkshire, after a 999 call was made by the school shortly after 11am yesterday.
Two students were taken to hospital. A senior fire officer at the scene said the cause was thought to be the children “overheating”, which led to panic and hysteria. Fire station manager Dave Winspear said: “The children just fainted and there was a ripple effect throughout the school.”
Crews from North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service sent hazardous materials specialists to the school to find out what caused the incident.
A specialist detection team was also sent by West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service. No chemicals or gases were detected. Students were later sent home from the school, which has 635 children aged from 11 to 18.
A parent who asked not to be named, said his daughter came home feeling faint, but he was sure that was because of how others had been feeling. “It’s a relief to think it might just be caused by mass hysteria,” he said.
A spokesman for North Yorkshire Police said officers were called after a number of pupils had collapsed.
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Yorkshire Ambulance Service said it treated up to 40 students at the scene.”
There have been several cases of mass hysteria in the UK. In 1965 at a girl’s secondary school in Blackburn, Lancashire several girls complained of dizziness and generally feeling unwell and several fainted.
By the afternoon 85 had been taken to hospital. When the school reopened on Monday, the fainting spells struck again. This time, 54 girls were hospitalised. Many of them had been admitted during the initial outbreak.
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