MISSISSAUGA, ONT. – Five secondary school students from Mississauga, Ont., were taken to hospital with chemical burns Wedneday afternoon after a science experiment went wrong and a litre of methanol caught fire.
Four of the students from St. Marcellinus Secondary School were taken to hospital and quickly released. But one 17-year-old student, Katherine Dos Santos, remains hospital with burns. She is in critical condition, said Bruce Campbell, a spokesman for the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board.
"I don’t have details on what went wrong, or how there was ignition," Campbell said in an interview. "The teacher did have a one-litre beaker of methanol, and there was flame."
Grade 11 science teacher Shelley Barros was demonstrating the difference between complete combustion and incomplete combustion when the accident occurred.
Students reportedly ran to the third-floor classroom door while trying to put out the flames burning on their classmates’ clothing and hair.
Barros put out the flames with a fire extinguisher.
Campbell said the teacher was not injured but is rattled. She is expected to resume teaching after the March break.
The accident is still under investigation.
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