Around a dozen children and a teacher at a maison relais centre were hospitalised on Friday after a fellow pupil poured hand sanitiser into a jug of drinking water.

Emergency services were called out to the centre in Steinfort, close to the Belgian border, on Friday after an 11-year-old student poured the disinfectant into a jug of water, which the other students and a teacher then drank, in an apparent prank.

However, the joke quickly turned into an urgent situation, RTL reported, with a dozen children and a teacher taken to hospital by the emergency services.

Although the level of propanol in the water was low, the children, aged between 10 and 12, underwent blood tests and spent the day in hospital for observation.

The ambulance service, fire brigade and police were all involved, with police launching an investigation to shed light on the circumstances of the incident.

Internal investigation

Sammy Wagner, mayor of Steinfort, confirmed the incident to reporters, saying that procedures laid down for this type of situation were followed, and the pupil’s “bad joke” had fortunately had no critical consequences.

In an updated statement issued on Monday, the council said that all students were “accompanied by a teacher in the ambulance,” and that the parents were personally informed of the incident. “At no time were the children’s lives in danger,” the statement said.

“As soon as we became aware of this incident, our Maison Relais team immediately implemented the safety protocols in place, alerting the emergency services and contacting the CGDIS,” the municipality explained. Authorities also contacted the toxicology centre in Brussels to assess the risks such a product could pose to those who had ingested it.

An internal investigation has been launched within the local municipal authority to determine how the accident could have occurred and to prevent it happening again in the future. The maison relais is set to open as planned on Monday.

(This article was originally published by Virgule and updated at 11:30 on 17 March 2025 with a statement from the council in Steinfort. Translation and editing by Alex Stevensson)