Three 6-year-old girls were rushed to the hospital Friday after ingesting an unknown substance during lunch at Henry O. Tanner Elementary School on Chicago's South Side. Paramedics were called to the school in the Grand Crossing neighborhood around 11 a.m., and all three girls were taken to Comer Children's Hospital.
The girls were listed in fair condition, according to the Chicago Tribune, which reported that no other injuries were reported in connection with the incident. The girls had ingested an unknown substance during the lunch hour. A separate account from CBS News Chicago, published August 20, 2025, concerned a different Tanner Elementary incident, not the October 16, 2026, incident. It reported that one child was taken to Comer Children's Hospital while two others refused treatment, with the hospitalized child's condition not immediately available.
The Chicago Sun-Times reported that Chicago police and fire officials said the three 6-year-old girls experienced abdominal pain after ingesting the substance, and that police said they were taken to Comer Children's Hospital in fair condition. That account aligns with the Tribune's description of all three girls being transported.
School Alerted Parents and CPS Safety Office
Tanner Elementary Principal Jacqueline Dillard said the school moved quickly once the girls fell ill, notifying both families and district officials. “We immediately provided support to our impacted community members and notified their parents and the CPS Office of Safety and Security,” Dillard said, per the Tribune's reporting.
The school also indicated it believed the substance may have come in the form of edibles. “We believe our community (members) may have ingested the unknown substance in the form of ‘edibles,’” the school said, according to the same Tribune account.
Pattern of Similar Incidents in Chicago and Detroit
Friday's incident is not the first time a Chicago elementary school has dealt with students falling ill from an unidentified substance. At Fort Dearborn Elementary School, police said 22 children ingested an unknown substance, with 11 transported to area hospitals and all listed in good condition, according to NBC Chicago. A separate report from Fox 32 Chicago described at least one Tanner Elementary student hospitalized after possibly overdosing on an unknown substance consumed outside school grounds.
Detroit schools have faced comparable scares this year. Six students were hospitalized after eating marijuana edibles at Thomas Edison Elementary School, and the district said all six were doing well the following day, according to ClickOnDetroit. A student at Detroit's Fisher Magnet was also evaluated after a possible edible ingestion but did not need to be transported to a hospital, the outlet reported.
Pediatric Exposures Have Climbed for Decades
The Tanner Elementary case fits into a broader national trend documented by researchers who track calls to U.S. poison centers. Intentional substance exposures at schools among children ages 6 to 18 totaled 122,700 reports between 2000 and 2024, according to a study published in ScienceDirect. The overall rate climbed 77.5% over that span, from 7.5 to 13.3 per 100,000 children, but the increase was far steeper among elementary-school-aged kids, whose rate rose 287.4%, from 3.1 to 11.9 per 100,000.
The same research found that 10% of these exposures resulted in a serious medical outcome, including two deaths, and that intentional misuse accounted for 62.2% of cases, followed by abuse at 23.6% and suspected self-harm or suicidal intent at 14.2%. A Children's Hospital of Michigan emergency medicine chief told ClickOnDetroit that pediatric marijuana-edible exposure has become a near-daily occurrence in emergency rooms, adding that children under 12 made up 13% of cannabis-related exposure calls in 2018.
