Students hospitalized after kiln fire Racial discrimination suit second for Advocate
Thirty elementary students at a north suburban school were hospitalized after fumes from a small kiln fire made them sick.
The fire broke out in an art department classroom at Antioch Upper Grade School, officials said. A teacher placed a blanket on the fire in hopes of extinguishing it, but the blanket was not flame resistant, the Antioch Fire Department said.
The teacher evacuated students and pulled a fire alarm. Firefighters arrived at the school at 8:40 a.m., extinguished the fire and checked for dangerous levels of carbon monoxide and other contaminants, the fire department said.
About an hour later, the department received a call that students were feeling ill. Fire officials called just after 11 a.m. for more ambulances.
Thirty students were then transported to area hospitals with non-critical injuries, the fire department said.
A school official said no toxic materials were in the kiln at the time of the fire.
As a precaution, the fire department ordered the evacuation of the school at 800 Highview Drive, and school officials decided to release all students early because of the incident. roneously said four people were trapped, Kelly said. It appeared one woman who had been inside the house was able to escape the blaze as firefighters arrived.
Firefighters went inside the house and upstairs, where they found the child already dead.
“The bedroom door had burned halfway through as we got there and went all the way through the door as we were there,” Lockport Township Capt. Joe Casagrande said.
Kelly said the heavy fire was “very stubborn” and took about an hour for firefighters to extinguish.
Kelly said the child’s mother was taken to the hospital after collapsing from emotional distress.
The victim had not been identified by deputy Will County coroners.
A second former employee of Advocate Christ Medical Center has come forward saying she and other black employees were discriminated against, according to a federal lawsuit filed this week.
Beatrice Ocloo claims she worked in the Oak Lawn hospital’s Post Anesthesia Care Unit, and that she was suspended and then fired in July 2011 after filing a complaint about race-based taunting at work.
White employees allegedly called her “baboon” and referred to her as “that African with the weird hair” and “that little African” in a derogatory way for several months, the suit claims.
She further alleges her white co-workers bumped into her in the halls on purpose, cursed her out or would ignore her when she was standing near them, the suit says.
After Ocloo complained about the taunting to the hospital’s human resource managers, staff members allegedly falsely accused her of carelessly transporting a patient, which resulted in disciplinary action.
Shortly afterward, she filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a move the lawsuit claims prompted the hospital to suspend her, and eventually fire her, in retaliation. She had been working at the hospital for 15 years.
Ocloo’s is the second such suit filed against the hospital in federal court this month. Johnita Murry, who also worked in the Post Anesthesia Care Unit, filed a suit May 4 claiming she and four other black employees were “subjected to racebased hostility and discriminatory treatment by the white nurses and managers.”
White employees allegedly called Murry “Crack-nita” on a daily basis, the previous suit claims. Murry claims she was also fired after complaining to the EEOC.