By Anastasia Brown · Community Editor
A “Humans vs. Zombies” game that the Urban Gaming Club sponsored abruptly ended after a fire broke out Saturday in the Ketler Hall recreation room (Ket Rec).
Around 1:10 p.m., Campus Safety received a report of the fire. Although a fire extinguisher squashed the immediate threat, the couch where the fire started continued to smoke. It was so severe that when Officer Jim Dickson arrived on the scene, he could not find the cause of the fire.
After opening windows to air out the room, Dickson and Campus Safety Patrolman Dwayne Talley carried the smoldering couch out of the room and began evacuating students. Unknown to them, several student members of the Urban Gaming Club stayed in the room to try to collect their group’s supplies.
A lithium battery charging on the couch started the fire. The fumes from the combusting battery were toxic, and when Campus Safety Director Seth VanTil arrived around 1:40 p.m., he found several students suffering from the effects of breathing the smoke.
“When I arrived, one student lying on the grass was very pale and having difficulty breathing,” VanTil said. “I then addressed the Humans vs. Zombies group and divided them into groups based on potential exposure.”
An ambulance and three medics soon arrived and were able to triage the students, including providing oxygen to Ian Armor, the club’s president. After examinations, three students were transported to AHN Grove City Hospital for further care.
“While we were working through this process, the Grove City Fire Department finished ventilating Ket Rec and told us it was safe to re-enter,” VanTil said. “Housekeeping then cleaned up the debris and fire extinguisher residue. Because there was still a lingering and faint odor of smoke, we left windows open but did not immediately re-open the room.”
By 4:30 p.m., all students were determined to be doing well.
Urban Gaming Club President Ian Armour was interviewed Monday and stated, “I am feeling much better after being discharged, and the only lasting effects I feel are an itchiness of my lungs, a damaged voice, which is recovering well, and symptoms similar to asthma.”
The owner and charger of the batteries that started the fire was a visiting alumnus, John Moran. The batteries were for a blaster that the club used that had an electric motor powering “flywheels” to fling darts at high velocity.
“Due to the high energy density lithium batteries offer, they are ideal to use in this case since you want as much power as you can get in a small battery, which is to be stored in the handheld blaster somewhere,” Armour said.
The safety officers and housekeeping staff could not locate the battery that started the fire.
“We found the charger with burnt wires, a partially melted circuit board and (a) different battery attached to it. … Because we did not find the burnt battery, it may have been fully consumed, or some of it may still be in the couch,” VanTil said.
