Vaping sickens students at Licking Heights High

Two teenage girls were hospitalized Wednesday after vaping and having an adverse reaction to a suspected liquid form of marijuana at Licking Heights High School, Pataskala police said.

Paramedics were dispatched to the school on an overdose call at 8:12 a.m. when school officials reported that two students were feeling unwell, said West Licking Joint Fire District Battalion Chief Justin Weaver. When police and paramedics arrived, they found a few more students reporting feeling ill, Weaver said.

Two of the students were taken to Mount Carmel East hospital in Columbus, while the others were treated at the school, he said.

The two girls taken to Mount Carmel East are believed to have had a bad reaction from the vaping but are expected to recover, said Pataskala police Deputy Chief Michael Boals.

“It was nothing lifethreatening,” Boals said.

The five girls — all of them 16 or younger — were together when the incident occurred in the school. One possessed the suspected drug, two of them vaped, and two reported that they watched, Boals said.

The drug is believed to be a liquid form of marijuana, but Pataskala police are awaiting the results of lab tests before deciding on any steps to take, Boals said.

District officials said in a note emailed to parents that paramedics told school officials that the students had inhaled an unknown substance that caused them to feel ill.