International- A dozen children ingested floor sealant at an elementary school in Juneau,
Alaska . - The incident occurred Tuesday when the floor sealant was loaded into a dispenser for
milk .
A dozen elementary school children in Alaska's capital accidentally drank floor sealant instead of milk on Tuesday, sending one of them to the hospital, the Juneau Empire reported.
The sealant appears to have been loaded by mistake into a dispenser for milk. After breakfast, students, who were enrolled in a summer program, "complained of the milk tasting bad and burning their mouth/throat," the Juneau School District said in an email to parents obtained by the Empire. Two adults also consumed the chemical.
Juneau Superintendent Bridget Weiss said the mix-up may have occurred due to the fact that pouches for both the sealant – milky-white in appearance — and cow's milk were being stored in the same area, the Associated Press reported.
"We don't know how that happened, but they were all put on the same pallet," she said. "That pallet was delivered, and the assumption was that it was milk because that's what we thought was being delivered."
Weiss said that the school district requires all chemicals to be a low-ingestion risk, "so our students are doing fine."
According to the district, the Empire reported, breakfast was served by staff working for NANA Management Services, a contractor that provides food-handling services for both the public and private sectors. A spokesperson for the company did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
The incident is being investigated by the Juneau Police Department.
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