Noxious fumes at Blue Island school send 32 to hospitals

• Reprints

Updated: August 4, 2011 4:20PM

Noxious fumes created after two janitors at a school in Blue Island attempted to unclog a drain with bleach and drain cleaner sent 32 people to the hospital — including 22 kids and the principal.

Neither janitor apparently realized what the other was up to when each tried to clear a stopped-up drain in a slop sink at Paul Revere Intermediate School Thursday, officials said. One used bleach, while the other one used drain cleaner.

The school had to be evacuated. Everyone except one of the custodians had been released from the hospital by Friday, officials said.

Domani Dioguardi, an 11-year-old fifth-grader, was put into an ambulance after complaining she couldn’t breathe, said her mother, Sara Aguilar.

“ ‘It smelled really bad and then I started getting dizzy and my head started hurting and I started coughing really bad and I had trouble breathing,’ ” Aguilar said Domani told her. Domani was treated and released from Little Company of Mary Hospital in Evergreen Park.

“The fumes probably just aggravated her asthma for a short period,” Aguilar said.

Principal Carl S. Gmazel was also taken to a hospital and released.