All students and staff are ‘safe and well’ after a Laois primary school was forced to evacuate.
The incident occurred yesterday at approximately 10am in Castletown Primary School when the carbon monoxide alarm sounded.
The emergency services were contacted and Mountrath Fire Service responded within ten minutes of the call.
A total of seven students and staff were brought to the Emergency Department, but thankfully there were no serious injuries.
“The school was fully evacuated in line with our fire drill procedures,” principal at Castletown Primary School, Gemma Lynch, told LaoisToday.
“In fairness, the kids were actually brilliant: they were straight out the door and they knew what to do, which was fantastic.
“Everyone was safely evacuated, and once the emergency services were on the scene, the Incident Commander took over and we contacted parents to bring the children home.”
An engineer is currently assessing the school, carrying out a preliminary report on what caused the carbon alarm to go off.
The findings are then required to be resolved and remediated before the school can re-open.
“We will be back open as soon as possible,” Ms Lynch said. “Ideally, we’d like to be back tomorrow, but I’m not sure if it can be done that quickly.
“We’re very happy that we have the carbon monoxide alarms in the school – health and safety is always a top priority for us – and without that it could have been a very different outcome.
“The children have regular fire drills, so they know exactly what to do; there was no panic because we do them all the time.
“All the procedures were in place, everything was followed, and thankfully everybody is safe well, and there were no serious injuries.”
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