At 8:39 the evening of February 26th, Mr. Bell sent a whole school email about an event the following day involving hot sauce tasting. However, by the time lunch followed the next day, students were disappointed to find that the event had been cancelled. So, what exactly happened in the few short hours that resulted in the termination of the event?
The action began in the depths of the email where students were asked to sign a waiver with parent permission before participating. Similar to many Chaminade events, the lengthy waiver acknowledged that you are taking a risk by engaging in tasting and that personal injury and illness could ensue. However, it did not seem likely that there would be a problem among the students. Students could bring in their own hot sauce, yet senior Max Williams ’24 wanted to bring one of the hottest on the market. Therefore, it was recommended that a teacher test it first. After the first block on Tuesday, Mr. Schilly decided to pour a bit on a chip to give it a try. His first reactions were intense, yet mild. He said, “It was super-hot! But it seemed like it would eventually fade away.” However, after what seemed like a long time, it never passed on. In fact, he even started to hiccup. With class starting in a few short minutes, it was clear that he needed to sit down and let his head stop spinning. Feeling that he might even throw up, Mr. Schilly asked Mrs. Chen to watch his English class while he went to grab a drink of water. To others, it was obvious something was wrong. He was sweating and shaking and said, “I wanted to throw up just to get it over with. But I couldn’t. It was the worst my stomach had ever hurt!” At this point, it was alerted to Dr. Desnoyer that something might be wrong, so he was told to come in and check on him in the bathroom. With few options remaining, he recommended that Mr. Schilly go see the nurse to see if she had anything that could help. Upon arrival, senior Tee Sirikantraporn ’24 was also laying down at the nurse’s office. When Mr. Schilly asked, it turned out that he too had tried the hot sauce and was in the same situation.
At this point, it was clear the hot sauce tasting event was not going to be a good idea and people needed to be stopped from trying the sauces before others were sick. At 9:22 that morning, Mr. Schilly sent a text to Mr. Bell saying, “I don’t think you should continue the hot sauce thing, it’s messing me up pretty bad.” Within an hour, the event was canceled. However, they weren’t the only victims. Senior Richie Wikiera ’24, tried the hot sauce not knowing the effects because it “seemed interesting and because I am a big fan of hot sauce.” What he didn’t know was that it was listed as the hottest in the world. When one of his classmates in the first block class wanted some, it piqued his interest into trying it as well. Richie said his initial reactions were similar to Mr. Schilly’s. A burning mouth, burning saliva, and chest and stomach pain followed. His solution was smart and within a few minutes Richie trudged down to the cafeteria to ask for a carton of milk to soothe the burning. He wished he would have read more about the label or the waiver before trying the sauce, but in the end he paid the price for these mistakes.
When asked if he would try it again, his response was a simple no. He wouldn’t do it and wouldn’t wish it upon anyone else. However, it was a funny experience. Even though there were negative effects from the event, Richie felt “it didn’t have to be taken down. It still would have been fun for students to try hot sauce, just not the horrible one that us guinea pigs tried.” The hot sauce is known as Doomed “A hellfire hot sauce” according to their website. Spiked with Trinidad scorpion and red habanero peppers, this sauce tests out in the lab at 2.76 million Scoville heat units! Compare this to ghost peppers which are nearly 1 million SHU. With the curiosity of students, it wouldn’t be surprising if this wasn’t the last food incident at Chaminade.
