Heat sends Bucks County students to hospital during Trenton Thunder field trip

TRENTON (WPVI) -- More than a dozen Bucks County middle school students were sent to the hospital because of heat issues after a field trip to a Trenton Thunder baseball game.

With temperatures hovering around the 90 degree mark, it apparently became too much for some of the students.

"It felt like it was very hot, and some kids passed out after we left," said 6th-grader Noah DiFranchi. "All of us really felt dizzy, all of us went to the hospital. We felt dizzy, lightheaded, we were all shaking because we were all scared of what was happening."

The Lower Makefield Police Department tells Action News sixth-graders from the William Penn Middle School were on a year-end field trip at Arm & Hammer Park Thursday to see the minor league baseball game when some students began to suffer from heat exhaustion and complain of being lightheaded.

Not knowing what was happening, first responders carried out a mass casualty response.

"When we arrived there, we were informed that many of the kids were suffering from heat stroke," said Lower Makefield Police Cpl. Curt Bradley.

Bucks County students were hospitalized because of the heat.

Two of the students, both girls, were taken from the ballpark to Capital Health Medical Center nearby.

"Upon their return to school at approximately 1 p.m., a number of students exhibited symptoms of heat-related illness," Pennsbury School District said in a statement released Thursday afternoon.

The school district says nurses began to treat the students. Parents and police were contacted.

"It was a mass casualty response. They didn't know what they were responding to. A doctor also responded from Lower Bucks Hospital," Lower Makefield Police Chief Ken Coluzzi said.

Five students were taken to Aria Health - Bucks County and seven were taken to St. Mary's Medical Center for observation.

Action News is told the students taken to Aria Health have been treated and released.

Six other students were treated by paramedics at the middle school located on the 1500 block of Derbyshire Road in Lower Makefield.

"It's scary when you hear that number of kids and that they're sick, you don't know what they were exposed to or what happened, so the mass casualty response into play and it worked perfectly," Coluzzi said.

Remarkably, parents and their kids say the school told them they were not allowed to bring water or anything into the stadium.

"Well, you had to pay to get a lunch, and then that was mainly it for all of the water," said Noah. "They didn't supply you with water until you got back to the school."

Parents were being updated on what happened on the Pennsbury School District website with the warning that, "All parents are encouraged to ensure their children are adequately hydrated on days when temperatures are unusually high."

That statement outraged parents who weren't even there.

"I might have said a couple of expletives, I was so angry," said Kelly DiFranchi, parent. "To sort of have that blame put on me, I just don't understand it. It was already like a terrible day, and then to kind of put that on me."

We were unable to get a response from the school district since it was after hours.