Possible mercury exposure has San Diego school officials worried

The discovery that scores of students had been exposed to mercury during their morning bus ride prompted lockdowns at a high school and two primary schools in Pacific Beach and Bay Park today, authorities reported.

Staff members at Mission Bay High School learned in the late morning that one of their students had brought a canister containing a small amount of the silvery element to school and had been showing it to his classmates, according to the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department.

There were no reports that anyone had suffered any ill effects from exposure to the substance, SDFRD spokesman Maurice Luque said.

Administrators directed teachers to keep all students in their classrooms to prevent the spread of any contamination. About an hour later, similar directives were issued at nearby Toler and Bay Park elementary schools, some of whose students had come to school aboard the same bus as the teen carrying the mercury.

Hazardous-materials personnel screened about 150 students and staffers for contamination, finding high levels of the metal on the clothing of several, including the bus driver, said Linda Zintz, a spokeswoman for San Diego Unified School District. Those youngsters and employees underwent decontamination procedures, she said.

“No one has shown any (illness) symptoms at this point,” Zintz said in the late afternoon.

The boy who brought the mercury to school apparently did so with no malicious intent, according to Zintz.