Thirteen children were sickened on Thursday at a Y.M.C.A. summer camp in East Orange, N.J., after eating edibles that looked like candy, according to the Y.M.C.A. and two parents of the children.
Another camper at the summer program, which serves children ages 10 to 13, shared the edibles with the children without the “knowledge or consent” of the Y.M.C.A., said Richard K. Gorab, a spokesman for the organization.
He said that employees at the East Orange Y.M.C.A., on North Arlington Avenue and William Street, had contacted emergency medical services, the police and the parents of those affected as soon as staff members noticed that the children were having an “adverse reaction.”
The campers were evaluated and released to their parents, he said.
Mr. Gorab said that Y.M.C.A. policy prohibited children from sharing food with other campers.
“The safety of every child in our care is our highest priority,” he said.
The chocolate edibles were laced with magic mushrooms, according to news reports, which cited the East Orange Police Department, which did not respond to multiple requests for comment on Saturday.
In a statement provided to NBC and other news outlets, Phyllis L. Bindi, the East Orange police chief, said that detectives were “conducting a thorough investigation to determine exactly what occurred, how these suspected edibles came into the possession of a juvenile and whether any criminal offenses were committed.”
The Essex County Prosecutor’s Office was also investigating the matter, according to a spokeswoman for the office.
Destany Yasmina said she heard a little before noon on Thursday that her 11-year-old son had consumed edibles.
Her son has a number of medical conditions, including cerebral palsy, epilepsy and anxiety, she said.
When she arrived at the Y.M.C.A., she found her son in near “psychosis” and shaking badly. He was saying, “I don’t wanna die, I don’t wanna die,” Ms. Yasmina, 31, said in an interview on Saturday.
The other children who had taken the edibles looked very dehydrated and had white lips, she said. It was “the worst sight that I had to see,” she added.
Ms. Yasmina said that emergency medical workers had rushed her son to a hospital because his blood pressure had spiked after taking the edibles. Once there, it became clear that he was actively hallucinating, she said.
He was gazing up at the ceiling and talking to himself, Ms. Yasmina said.
Her son has returned home, but his anxiety has grown worse since taking the edibles, said Ms. Yasmina, who lives in East Orange. She plans to take him to a doctor on Monday.
After Cynthia Cunningham learned that her 12-year-old daughter had consumed edibles, she rushed to the Y.M.C.A. to find the affected children in a separate room, all looking “like little baby zombies,” she said in an interview on Saturday.
Ms. Cunningham’s daughter told her that she had only one bite of what looked like a Hershey’s chocolate bar, and that she had spit it out when it tasted weird, she said.
Regardless, her daughter seemed pretty high, Ms. Cunningham, 32, said, so she took her to a hospital.
Ms. Cunningham’s younger daughter filmed her older sister on the drive over. Ms. Cunningham said her 12-year-old had seemed “very lethargic” and that everything she did was in “slow motion.”
Her 12-year-old daughter was discharged from the hospital that day, but Ms. Cunningham has decided not to take her daughters back to the East Orange Y.M.C.A., a place they have attended regularly for years.
Instead, the girls will be spending time this summer with their grandmother in Fayetteville, N.C.
Ms. Cunningham, who lives in Wayne, N.J., and works as an assistant at a homeless shelter, called the entire episode a “disaster” and remained furious that her child care plans had been upended.
“This is people’s child care, so that they can keep their jobs,” she said.
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