Eyewitness NewsHEMPSTEAD (WABC) -- Someone threw a lit firecracker into a room at a Long Island middle school Tuesday, causing an explosion and panic that left several people injured. The incident happened at Hempstead Middle School around 11 a.m., while students were registering for summer classes.
Sources say several parents and students were in a computer lab when someone, possibly a student, ran into the lab and threw a lit firecracker onto a table that held a computer. That computer exploded, sending shrapnel across the room.
As many as five people were taken to an area hospital with non-life threatening injuries.There is reportedly at least one person in custody, though it is not clear what that suspect will be charged with.
The incident set off a panic in the hall of the school.
"I heard, like, three pows," one student said. "It was like boom, boom, boom, like gunshots going off inside the building. And I seen a whole bunch of people running and screaming, it's a fire, it's a fire."
"A straight boom, like basically a bomb," another said. "You know, when you throw a firecracker indoors, it's going to sound loud. So it was really loud, a lot of smoke and everything. The teachers were panicked. Some of them were crying and everything."
Officials say that some of the injuries were caused in the panic that followed the explosion.
The Nassau County Fire Marshal's Office is investigating.
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