At least 12 students reported feeling unwell after drinking bottled sports drinks from bottles with suspected pinholes, handed out outside Hammer Hill Road Sports Ground during a school athletics meet in Wong Tai Sin. Arrangements were made for them to receive hospital treatment, with nine ambulances and a mobile command vehicle attending by about 4pm on 22 September.
The drinks were distributed at about 2pm, during the lunchtime period. A parent reported that free drinks were being handed out outside the venue, and police went to the scene to investigate. By about 4pm, students were reporting symptoms including dizziness and stomach pain.
One student who said she had not drunk the beverages told reporters that some classmates had become dizzy or developed stomach pain. She said the people distributing the drinks had described them as being given out for charity. She later saw suspected pinholes in different parts of some bottles, including the caps and the outside of the bottles.
Police searched roadside rubbish bins and removed plastic drink bottles for examination. It remained unclear what, if anything, was inside the bottles or whether the drinks caused the students’ symptoms.
Maryknoll Secondary School said an outside supplier had distributed the bottled drinks outside the athletics-meet venue. The school said it suspected some bottles had damaged packaging, urged students not to drink them and recalled the relevant drinks. It also notified parents to monitor their children’s condition.
It remained unclear whether the distributors were the outside supplier referred to by the school. Maryknoll Secondary School said police had taken over the investigation and that it would fully cooperate and continue following up.