Nine Year 6 pupils at Jesse Gray Primary School in West Bridgford were taken to hospital on Wednesday after they were discovered to have eaten seeds from trees on the school grounds. East Midlands Ambulance Service was called to the Nottinghamshire primary school at 13:26 BST and sent paramedics in ambulance cars, crewed ambulances and its Hazardous Area Response Team, with an air ambulance responder also attending.
The children were taken to the Queen's Medical Centre as a precaution and monitored for several hours before being discharged after a short period. They returned to school on Thursday. The incident is now prompting a visible response at the school, where a number of trees will be removed and the area where the children were playing remains cordoned off.
A county council spokesman said a professional inspection was carried out this morning by the school's ground maintenance team and that a small number of trees will be removed from the grounds. The spokesman also said a school assembly had reinforced the message of safe play and the dangers of eating berries or seeds from trees and shrubs. The school has not said what symptoms, if any, the pupils experienced, but the precautionary hospital trip shows how quickly a routine break-time moment turned into an emergency response.
For the families involved, the immediate concern has passed. For the school, the next step is making the grounds safer before the same play area is used again in the same way.
