Student Finds Ritalin in Cup of Pears

A fourth-grader who bought her lunch at her school cafeteria in San Antonio tasted something unusual in her cup of pears.

"This one little girl reported that when she bit into her fruit, she felt a crunch," said Pascual Gonzalez, spokesman for the Northside ISD. "Something didn't sound right, she spit out what looked to be a prescription pill."

The pill turned out to be a capsule of Ritalin, a common prescription for children with attention deficit disorder.

"It's kind of strange. Did another student put it in there? Did one of the lunchworkers drop it in there?" wondered concerned parent Michael Knowles.

Investigators say that the Ritalin must have been placed inside the cup of pears shortly before the student discovered it. Otherwise the liquid inside the container would have dissolved the pill.

School officials are interviewing the victim's classmates amongst others. There are suspicions that because many kids take Ritalin, a student may have been the culprit.

Ritalin can cause sudden death in children with heart defects. Overdoses can lead to vomiting, tremors and convulsions.

The child was taken to the hospital as a precaution and is doing fine.