What was supposed to be a reward for Eugene Sires Elementary School’s first and second graders became something entirely different on Monday May 19, 2026, when 32 of the children on a field trip to Cinemark on Ladson Road in Ladson, South Carolina, became ill shortly after eating their movie theater snacks, one after another, inside the theater, while watching The Land Before Time. Poison control and EMS were called.
Parents got frightening phone calls. A chaperone described chaos. The South Carolina Department of Public Health opened an investigation. And as of Friday, nobody has determined what made the children sick.
The field trip was a reward, the kind of end-of-year outing that elementary students anticipate and that parents sign permission slips for without much concern.
It ended with 32 children vomiting in a movie theater while their teachers, chaperones and eventually emergency medical personnel tried to manage a situation that the district’s director of nursing described as something she had never seen before in her time in the role.
Amanda Sims, director of nursing and health services for Dorchester School District Two, put it directly. “This is definitely an unusual situation. That’s why, we wanted to step in and take action quickly since this is certainly not your average day in the school nursing world.”
What Parents Were Told And What They Found
For the parents of children on the Eugene Sires Elementary field trip, Monday afternoon began with a phone call that did not come from a familiar number.
Ashley Williams described receiving the call about her daughter. “It was pretty scary because I got a call from a number that wasn’t the school number, and they just said that my daughter got ill during the field trip, that I need to come get her, and that poison control and EMS had been called because several other students had gotten ill.”
The combination of elements in that call, an unfamiliar number, a sick child, poison control, EMS, and multiple other children also ill, is the kind of information that arrives faster than it can be processed.
Williams was being told that something was wrong with her child and also that the scale of what was wrong extended far beyond her child alone.
Sierra Denny, a parent who was on the trip as a chaperone, described what the scene looked like inside the theater as the children began to get sick. The children started vomiting one after another in a pattern that Denny described as chaotic.
Multiple other parents called the situation a nightmare. At least one was quoted saying that somebody should be liable.
The teacher chaperone on the trip acted quickly. She immediately notified school administrators when the situation became clear.
The district’s nursing staff was dispatched to the scene. The assessment that followed determined it was safe to bring the students back to school, where the school nurse and EMS personnel continued to evaluate them and where family contacts were made for every child who had fallen ill.
What The Investigation Has Found So Far
The South Carolina Department of Public Health was notified on Monday and opened an investigation.
As of Friday May 22, the cause of the mass illness has not been determined. The department’s statement has remained the same since Tuesday, it is investigating and has not reached a conclusion.
The Cinemark on Ladson Road where the incident occurred has a clean inspection record.
The most recent health inspection from the South Carolina Department of Agriculture was conducted in February 2025. The theater received an A rating.
All of its previous inspection reports also graded the facility an A. The inspection record does not point toward a sanitation or food handling failure that would explain what happened Monday.
That combination, 32 sick children in a movie theater, all vomiting after eating snacks, and no obvious explanation in the inspection record, is what makes the investigation difficult and what has left parents without answers days after the incident.
The symptoms, vomiting following snack consumption in the theater, are consistent with either a foodborne illness, a contamination event of some other kind, or something environmental that the investigation will need to explore.
The district has been careful about its communications. Sims, the nursing director, was explicit that the school system is not leading the investigation and does not speculate on the cause. “We don’t speculate the cause of this incident but we leave that to the agencies who are responsible for those types of things. We’re not leading the investigation. We defer to those agencies that oversee commercial businesses and vendors that sell and distribute food.”
That deference is appropriate given how the investigation is structured, the Department of Public Health and the Department of Agriculture have jurisdiction over the food safety questions, not a school district.
It also means that the parents asking for answers are being told to wait for agencies that, as of Friday, have not yet produced a public conclusion.
The Children And Their Families
The specific detail that the field trip was a reward helps contextualize both the children’s experience and the parents’ frustration.
End-of-year reward field trips are designed as celebrations, the kind of outing that first and second graders look forward to and talk about for weeks before it happens.
The Land Before Time is a children’s animated film about young dinosaurs navigating a world full of challenges, a gentle story chosen specifically for the age group involved.
Thirty-two children who went to a movie theater for a reward came home sick. Some of them were first graders, six and seven years old, who had no framework for understanding why they suddenly became ill in a theater while watching a cartoon about dinosaurs.
The district’s communication to parents acknowledged both the seriousness of the situation and the limits of what the school system could offer by way of explanation at the time.
“Student safety and care remain among our highest priorities. We appreciate the quick response of our staff and healthcare personnel as we continue to monitor the situation and support our students and families.” The statement is appropriate to the circumstances. It does not answer the question every parent with a child on that field trip is still asking.
What Is Next?
The investigation is active and ongoing. The South Carolina Department of Public Health has not released findings. The theater has not commented publicly.
The school district, as it has said, is not leading the investigation and will not speculate on cause.
What the investigation will eventually need to explain is specific: what was in the movie theater snacks that 32 children consumed before becoming ill, whether that substance or pathogen was contaminated at the point of preparation, the point of sale, or the point of manufacture, and whether anything about the theater environment contributed to what happened.
The children who were sick on Monday have been home since then. The district’s nursing staff monitored the situation through the week.
No hospitalizations were reported, the illness, while dramatic and distressing, appears to have been acute rather than requiring intensive medical care.
None of that makes the unanswered questions easier for the families who watched their children come home sick from what should have been a fun afternoon at the movies.
