MINNEOLA, Fla — Investigators said a school bus driver's trash-picking habit made an entire bus full of children sick.
The bus was headed to Minneola Elementary Charter School, and Eyewitness News learned it had to be decontaminated along with the children and the entire school.
The driver picked up a pump spray bottle of malathion insecticide, which smells really bad and makes people sick.
The bus driver has been suspended without pay while the district investigates.
The Lake County School District said, until Friday, the bus driver, 52-year-old Pablo Areas, had a clean record. But now, it is investigating why he put a can of insecticide on the bus with children.
"He just sprayed something, like 'shhh-shhh,' and I do this. 'What are you doing?' And he's like, this, spraying something. 'I'm cleaning,'" said student, Cesar Hernandez.
The Minneola Elementary student said it made him sick.
"I feel like I'm going to throw up. I feel my whole body feels bad and everything," said Hernandez.
In total, 27 people had to be decontaminated with water and soap.
One school employee went to the hospital, but officials said she is OK.
The Minneola Fire Department tested a student's shoe and found out it was malathion. It had also been sprayed on the kids' clothes.
The district retrieved the bus video late Friday afternoon.
"We don't know how it got onto the bus and how it got dispersed on the bus," said Chris Patton, Lake County School District spokesman.
The Lake County Sheriff's Office said Areas told them he picked up the canister from someone's trash this morning and planed to take it home with him. When the smell started making students sick, he stopped and threw it in someone else's trash on the way to school.
Some kids left school Friday morning, including William Allen's child.
"Bus driver, put a chemical that makes kids ill, that's bad news," said Allen.
The district said it will make a determination about the Areas on Tuesday.
Officials told Eyewitness News that everyone is OK now, and the information that is out there about malathion indicates it leaves the system in three to five days, and is of low toxicity.
School officials have already taken the bus to be decontaminated.
WFTV
