Pubdate: Wed, 22 Aug 2001
Source: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (AR)
Copyright: 2001 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.ardemgaz.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/25
Author: Rodney Bowers, Jim Brooks

2 DEPUTIES IMPROVING

Illness Cause Still Baffling

Two Saline County deputies hospitalized after apparently coming into 
contact with an unknown substance during a Friday drug arrest were released 
from a hospital Tuesday afternoon but are still too sick to return to work.

Sheriff Phil Mask said deputies Kevin Nason and Lee Lobbs would undergo 
further medical tests before being cleared to return to duty.

"I told them to go home," Mask said. "They're still tired, but they felt 
well enough to be released from the hospital."

The sheriff said chemical tests on a substance found in a plastic bag 
during a Friday night arrest revealed the presence of crystal 
methamphetamine and a substance that has not been identified.

"The state Crime Lab has worked diligently on this, and they said it [the 
unknown substance] is not potassium chloride," the sheriff said.

Lt. Jim Andrews, head of the sheriff's criminal investigation division, 
said experts, including those at the state Crime Laboratory and the Centers 
for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, have yet to determine what 
caused the illness, which initially appeared to be a heart attack.

Nason and Lobbs got sick while arresting Randolph Schilling, 50, after a 
traffic stop near Shannon Hills. Schilling, an associate professor of 
mathematics at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, was arrested on 
charges of refusing to take a sobriety test and possession of a controlled 
substance with intent to deliver. He was released Monday after posting 
$2,500 bail.

Jeff Yllander, agent in charge of the Little Rock office of the federal 
Drug Enforcement Agency, said he has offered his department's assistance in 
the case, adding, "I've got a call in to the sheriff to see what we can do."

Lobbs and Nason were taken to Southwest Regional Medical Center in Little 
Rock on Friday after they began throwing up and convulsing. They were 
released Saturday but were readmitted to the hospital Sunday afternoon when 
symptoms persisted.

Mask said investigators searched Schilling's home and found nothing to help 
explain the officers' conditions.

"I'm going to send them to the department's doctor before they are put back 
on duty," the sheriff said. "Right now, there's just no knowing what caused 
this."
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