By Mike Sever

Record-Courier staff writer

Carbon monoxide detected at the Young Friends Childcare Center in Ravenna Township sent 21 children and their adult teachers to the hospital Wednesday morning for precautionary examinations.

Parents were notified by the school, located on New Milford Road, as the children were being evacuated by Ravenna Township Fire Department. Fire departments from all over the county shuttled the children and several adult teachers to Robinson Memorial Hospital in Ravenna for tests and observation.

Parents met their children at Robinson Memorial, some of whom had blood samples taken to determine if they had any carbon monoxide exposure.

Carbon monoxide is a colorless, odorless, poisonous gas produced by the incomplete burning of fuels.

"The good news is none of the children have any symptoms of CO poisoning. They're being brought here simply for evaluation and observation," said Christine Isenberg, Robinson Memorial spokeswoman.

All of the tests came back clean, Isenberg said.

Dan Hamblin, corporate director for the school, said teachers detected the odor of gas when they opened the school at 5968 New Milford Road and immediately moved the children outside and called the fire department.

Tim Morgan, assistant fire chief for the Ravenna Township Fire Department, said "monitoring discovered extremely high carbon monoxide levels in the furnace room and elevated levels in the rest of the building." Fire personnel vented the building while the Dominion Gas turned off the gas supply.

Kent Fire Chief James Williams said levels "up to 200 parts per million" were detected in some places in the building.

According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the health effects from exposure depend on the level of CO and length of exposure, as well as individual health condition.

Exposure to CO levels of 200 ppm over several hours is considered to be medium exposure, and symptoms can include headaches, dizziness, nausea and light-headedness.

Hamblin said the building was equipped with carbon monoxide detectors, but no one reported hearing any alarms.

As fire emergency vehicles took the children to Robinson Memorial, Hamblin was calling parents to notify them of the gas leak.

Departments responding to the scene included Ravenna Township, Ravenna City, Rootstown, Brimfield, Kent, Streetsboro, Edinburg and Randolph.

As the last of the fire departments cleared the scene, Hamblin said he had a furnace repair firm on the way to determine the cause of the fumes. He said he hoped to have the school reopened by this morning.