HOLY MYSTERY

Eight Children Hospitalized After Mystery Seizures at Harvard Square Church Concert

The children were performing with a French touring choir when they suddenly fell ill.

Eight children have been hospitalized in Cambridge, Massachusetts, after experiencing seizure-like symptoms during a choir performance on Tuesday night. The children, all between the ages of 11 and 13, were members of a touring French youth choir who were performing a free show at St. Paul’s Parish, a Catholic church in Harvard Square, when they fell ill. Paramedics first responded to a report that one child at the concert was experiencing a seizure. Upon arriving, they found the first child was no longer seizing, but seven more had begun to exhibit similar symptoms. All eight children were treated on the scene, then transported to a local hospital. The Cambridge Fire Department later shared images on Facebook of a firefighter carrying one of the children away from the church. The department also employed a hazmat team to test the church’s air conditions. Investigators now believe fumes from cleaning supplies may have caused the children’s symptoms, though a spokesperson told USA Today that no one in the concert’s roughly 70-person audience fell ill. Luckily, the children’s symptoms were not life-threatening, and all eight had been released from the hospital by Wednesday afternoon.