Mass intoxication at Pontifical Mass in France

Pas-de-Calais: 70 worshippers treated by the fire brigade after carbon monoxide poisoning in a church

The fire brigade intervened on Saturday evening after a celebration presided over by the Bishop in the Church of Tincques, near Arras. Seven people were hospitalised.

The celebration could have turned into a tragedy. On the evening of Saturday 11 February, nearly two hundred worshippers gathered in the church of Saint-Hilaire in Tincques, 35 kilometres from Arras, experienced nausea symptoms. When alerted, the fire brigade identified carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning from a dilapidated heater. Seventy people were treated on Saturday evening, seven of whom were hospitalised, the SDIS 62 told Le Figaro. On Sunday morning, two children were still being observed with "seriously impaired health".

The priest with the Bishop in another Church

That evening, the church was packed for this ceremony organised on the eve of the national suicide prevention day, and presided over by the bishop of Arras, Mgr Leborgne. During the mass, several people in the audience began to feel headaches and the urge to vomit. Three of them felt faint. I didn't notice anything until I saw a teenage girl fall," Father Vincent Batantou, the parish priest, told Le Figaro. I thought it was emotion, because there were several families whose children had committed suicide and the atmosphere was very contemplative.

"The candles were going out by themselves".

"It was strange, the candles were going out by themselves," one person in the audience also told La Voix du Nord. "We relit them several times. Mayor Jacques Thellier, who was also present at the back of the church, said he had not felt anything. "It was rather after the ceremony that most people experienced symptoms, at the time of the drink shared with the bishop," said Abbé Batantou. "We saw two more adults feeling ill. That's when we started talking about a gas leak.

At 9pm, the ambulance service was alerted. The fire brigade, about forty of them, took charge of 70 people gathered in the village hall. The first analyses in the church reveal a carbon monoxide concentration of 238 parts per million (PPM), an explosive level. The cause was a defective radiant heater "which is used to warm the choir members and musicians", the village mayor told France 3 Hauts-de-France on Sunday morning.

Outdated heating system

The gas would have leaked from the bottle that supplied the heater, explained the SDIS 62. "All the heating appliances have been taken out of service and natural ventilation has been preferred. The gendarmerie has opened an investigation to identify the leak.

The priest, for his part, confided to Le Figaro that he had "often" smelled gas in the choir.

(Cathcon: And did nothing!!!!)

Already at the beginning of the winter, he had felt ill during a celebration. "Most old churches have a lot of old systems," he said. For their part, parishioners have set up a WhatsApp group to keep each other informed about the state of each other. "There is nothing serious, thank God, but one parishioner called me this morning and said he was vomiting and would not be coming to Sunday Mass," the parish priest said.

Source

The superb war memorial window in the Church made more poignant by the bombardment it suffered during World War One.

The only interior view of the Church which I have been able to find.