If you have ever burnt a batch of popcorn, then you know the smell can be pretty intense. To me, it smells a little worse than burnt milk, but not quite as bad as scorched beans. To the kids staying in a University of Texas dorm, burnt popcorn smells like something requiring evacuation and a hazmat team. Which is exactly what they got after somebody called the fire department to report a strong odor in the building.
Everyone in the building was sent outside while the brave members of the Austin Fire Department tracked down the source. "What we found was burnt popcorn. It was popcorn burnt on the fourth floor, and it had a pretty bad odor and it spooked a lot of folks," an AFD spokesperson said.
By "spooked", he means "caused imaginary respiratory distress", with about 45 people complaining of feeling sick and having trouble breathing. Can the smell of burnt popcorn really make you sick? The fire department says no and blames the high number of patients on a "sympathetic reaction."
