All Clear After Church Evacuated, 3 Children Taken To Hospital

WEST ROXBURY, MA — Three elementary-age children were taken to the hospital after one passed out and seven others complained they were not feeling well during a joint prayer service at a Catholic school Friday morning in West Roxbury.

The three young children went to the hospital with what fire officials called "non-life threatening injuries," and the other five were released to their parents. The church was evacuated as precaution while firefighters made a sweep of the building said school officials. By 12:30 p.m. school was back in session and the students were bussed back to their schools.

"There's nothing wrong with the building, we're all back to normal," Holy Name Parish School's Maureen O'Malley told Patch, adding that the rest of the students were back in their classes.

"What happened was five different schools came here for a prayer service for chruch, and a couple kids from another school got sick and dialed 911," said O'Malley.

After that, everyone else was asked to leave the church as a precaution while the fire department came made a sweep of the building, checked to make sure everything is up to code.

"We went through the building checked the air quality. The air quality was fine," Marc Sanders of the Boston Fire Department told reporters outside the school. "Nothing appeared out of the ordinary."

The cause of the sudden illnesses is still under ivestigation.

Holy Name Parish School is a parochial, coeducational school grounded in the Roman Catholic faith serving Nursery through grade six, according to its website.

Holy Name Parish School is situated at 1689 Centre Street :

Photo by Jenna Fisher/Patch