Students playing hooky in pipe suffer smoke inhalation after starting campfire

Cathy Scott

Friday, March 20, 1998 | 3:18 a.m.

Ten teenagers who ditched school Friday and started a campfire inside a storm drain were escorted out by Metro Police and taken to area hospitals for treatment for smoke inhalation, officials said.

Las Vegas Fire Department rescue crews and Metro's Search & Rescue Section officers searched for 3-1/2 hours to pull the last four teens out of the east end of the pipe near Lake Mead Boulevard and Buffalo Road behind Cimarron High School.

First, six students walked out at about 10:15 a.m. Two hours later, one more was found hiding in the pipe. Then about an hour later, one more. And finally, the last two walked out more than three hours after the search began.

The last two boys were handcuffed before they were escorted by police and firefighters out of the storm drain to a waiting ambulance. They had soot on their faces.

Two firefighters suffered exhaustion while searching for the teenagers. One police officer was also taken to University Medical Center for smoke inhalation treatment.

The rescue began at 9:40 a.m. when two Metro officers spotted smoke coming from the west end of the storm drain, Lt. Rick Alba said. The officers walked into a gulley at the mouth of the pipe, looked in and saw the kids burning a campfire, officials said.

One parent told reporters at University Medical Center that the kids were burning their homework.

One boy, handcuffed with a friend and escorted out, said: "We were sitting there (in the tunnel) and I said, 'This is too much smoke,' and we started to leave. "We saw the cops (at the end of the tunnel) and everybody started heading the other way. That's what we all did."

Marios Canales, 16, a sophomore at Cimmarron, said he had never been in the tunnel before, but three of his friends told him they were going to a party inside the storm drain.

"I guess to a lot of kids, it's some place to go," he said. "They go in and just kick it down there. There are a lot of kids who run away and they end up being down there."

Canales said he thought it was dangerous.

"It's open," he said. "Nothing's standing in their way from going in. There aren't any signs warning kids not to go in there.

"I wouldn't go in there. You never know what you might see. There could be a bum or something. It's dark inside."

Tim Szymanski, spokesman for the fire department, said because the fire was considered a camp fire, the students would not be charged with arson.