Student Poisons Teacher’s Drink By Pouring In Hand Sanitizer

A teacher poisoned by a student who sneaked hand sanitizer into her drink ended up sick and in bed. The boy is claiming it was all an accident but police are buying his story.

In a related report by The Inquisitr, two students were arrested for conspiring to kill a teacher by poisoning a drink with rat poison.

The 14-year-old Crystal Lake Middle School student named Zachary Malvasia is being charged with one felony count of poisoning food or water. Witnesses claim that Malvasia managed to get hold of the teacher’s water when she was busy dealing with another student who had used a cell phone during class. She had stepped outside the classroom to talk to the dean and that’s when the other students used the opportunity to strike. While everyone was lined up for lunch, Malvasia allegedly grabbed Zep’s Professional Hand Sanitizer and “pushed down on the hand sanitizing gel bottle twice and squired it into the water… and he then shook the cup of water in a circular motion.”

The teacher in the case, Ana Morejon, says she took a sip of water, noticed it tasted chalky and smelled funny, but still took another sip before she realized she smelled hand sanitizer in her drink. The teacher ended up in Bartow Regional Medical Center because she had a headache and stomachache and was put on medication because of the sanitizer. Fortunately, she is now recovering but she’s had to visit the emergency room twice due to the issues related to being poisoned. Scott Sjoblom, a spokesman with the Florida Department of Health in Polk County, said she was essentially suffering from alcohol poisoning because the hand sanitizer is composed of 60 percent ethanol and deionized water.

Police arrested the student after talking to him and other students who claimed to have witnessed him poisoning the teacher’s drink. Malvasia denies these allegations, saying “he put hand sanitizer on his hands then coughed and some of it landed in the cup, and he said he tried to wipe it off the lid.” School officials are saying they are still investigating the incident but so far it is believed it was not an accident.

The parents of the student were not willing to discuss the incident other than to say they were hiring a lawyer. Malvasia has been remanded into his parent’s custody and he is ordered to appear in court in the future.