Student Dies From Allergy To School Water

Aramie Ewen06/30/2020Quarantine Issue Two

#Timeless news

This Wednesday, [name redacted] of Brooklyn Technical High School (BTHS) has passed away due to a severe allergic reaction. According to classmates, they drank water from an 8th floor gym fountain that morning, a fatal mistake.

In an email from the student's parents, they told us:

Their reaction was so fast. By the time we knew what happened, [name redacted] was already dead … This wasn’t supposed to happen today. I mean, [name redacted] wasn’t allergic to water. And, we’re pretty sure the reaction wasn’t from an arsenic or lead deficiency; we make sure to keep those nutritional staples in our everyday diet. As far as we know, [name redacted] was totally healthy, and we couldn’t be more heartbroken. We’re just left wondering why [name redacted] had to die today. Tomorrow would have been so much more convenient Of course, we all know their death was inevitable, as is with all mortals, but it is definitely unfortunate for it to have happened this way. It's just sweet to know that the BTHS community has been hurt knowing the water fountains have killed. As one student described, “the water fountains of our school form a community in ways school doesn’t. Over time, we all agreed to avoid them, but that wasn’t about [anonymous student’s] allergy. Why would it be? That was about the community of avoiding water fountains.”

One investigator thought that this makes sense in context, responding “avoiding a certain food or drink can make you more sensitive to its effects,” when asked about the unusual water fountain student agreement. 

Possibly to discover those effects, user “beefsoupismeattea” wrote “I heard … water samples were being transferred to a physics lab in Nevada,” on a reputable, anonymous public messaging site in response to a news video also covering this story. 

In a statement addressing this incident, BTHS said, “We are aware of what happened and send our condolences to the family.” Even though they do not say what happened in the email, they also stated: “while investigations are going on, we suggest not drinking water at school.” When questioned, nobody seemed concerned. As one student elaborated, “we’ll just adapt to have leathery skin, like in Dune.” Although this has no medical basis, user “beefsoupismeattea” mentioned something similar.

Some teachers had very little empathy for anyone involved, the dead student nor the ones left. Even after we were done with the interview, we could hear the teacher quietly muttering: “I drink water, too. I wish that it didn’t have to be this way with that kid, but we’ll have to move on. We have to keep learning, and growing as individuals, even if they can’t.” The teacher then proceeded to plug their psychology book, explaining this was just their coping mechanism to themself. While this may be considered concerning, [name redacted] is dead. It is so very unfortunate that [name redacted] of BTHS has died from an allergic reaction to the school water. Even though we have always thought there could be something in the water, it seems that the problem was the water itself all along.

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