At least nine children and three adults were injured after the roof at a middle school collapsed following a water leak.
The incident took place in Oakland Park, Florida, where the roof of James S Rickards Middle School partially caved in while under construction after a major water leak.
According to the reports, the part of the roof that collapsed on Friday morning, at around 10 am, was covering the school’s media center.
While no one was inside the media center at the time of the incident, twelve people, including nine children, reported ailments including headaches and nausea as a result of the roof’s collapse. Several of them were reportedly also taken to the hospital for observation.
At the time of the incident, the school’s media center was reportedly undergoing construction, whereas everyone safely evacuated before the roof’s collapse.
“Luckily, through our search and our primaries and the great attentiveness of the school principal and their staff, they were able to evacuate everybody, get all the construction people out, so everyone was accounted for,” Fort Lauderdale Fire Chief Stephen Krivjanik explained in a statement to WSVN.
“But just to be sure, we always do routinely another secondary search, we also brought a dog in to search the entire school to make sure no one was in there and also a drone to check to make sure there was no one on the roof that maybe got hurt during the collapse.”
In an official statement, Broward County Public Schools went on to share details surrounding the accident as they revealed the school’s principal heard loud bangs before realizing the roof had caved in.
“Before 10 o’ clock this morning, the principal of Rickards Middle was in his office when he heard a noise which was followed by a subsequent noise,” Keyla Concepcion revealed.
“When he went out to investigate and see where the noise was coming from, that’s where he realized that the media center, which is currently under construction, the roof collapsed.
“Fortunately, no student or faculty members were inside the media center. Everyone has been evacuated to Northeast High School next door.”
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Replaced!