Jill Tucker, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, January 14, 2011
Seven San Francisco middle school students were taken to hospitals Thursday after ingesting small amounts of rat poison they found on top of a classroom filing cabinet, thinking the single blue cube was candy, fire officials said.
The Martin Luther King Jr. students, who showed no symptoms other than fear, were transported to three local hospitals, but were not expected to suffer any harmful consequences, said Fire Department spokeswoman Mindy Talmadge.
Talmadge said one of the students found the small cube and took a little nibble and told classmates it tasted like a cookie. Six others, boys and girls ranging in age from 10 to 12, then licked or bit pieces of the 1.5-inch cube of poison and either swallowed or spit it out.
