By Kellie Applen
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
CONCORD – Laura Martin loves hot sauce.

So much so, the 16-year-old Concord High School senior dropped $25 for a bottle of Mad Dog 357 and brought it with her to school today.

Little did Laura know, the fiery sauce would end up hurting two classmates and lead to the school suspending her and a 15-year-old friend, Stephanie Goins.

“I thought it was ridiculous that I got suspended for possession of a deadly weapon and it was hot sauce,” Laura said.

Principal Ronald Miller said the girls were suspended for the way they used the sauce, not because they had it.

“If anything causes a disruption or harm to anyone, then it’s grounds for taking disciplinary action,” he said early this afternoon. But after talking to students and parents again, the school revoked the suspension. Still, the girls spent one day at home.

Laura and Stephanie said they brought the sauce to school because several friends had boasted they could handle the heat, Laura said. Before their first class Thursday, a 16-year-old male friend tried to prove it by chugging the sauce, she said.

Turns out, he couldn’t. The boy started breathing hard, his face turned red, and he got the shakes, Laura said. The school called paramedics, though he insisted he would be fine, Laura said.

“Even the paramedic said there is nothing wrong. He said, ‘It’s just hot sauce,’” Laura said.

The school called paramedics again when a supervisor realized another male student accidentally got hot sauce in his eye, she said.

Stephanie and Laura went to class but were pulled out by a supervisor, brought to a vice principal’s office and slapped with a two-day suspension.

“It was their own stupidity and we shouldn’t have gotten in trouble for it,” Stephanie said

Neither girl was in trouble with their parents. And upon further reflection, school officials decided the girls may not have been at fault.

Laura’s father, Vince Martin, said the school overreacted.

“I think it’s stupid,” Martin said. “I mean it’s a food item, OK? I have never heard of anybody getting suspended for hot sauce. Knifes and guns, yes.”

Though Martin appreciates his daughter’s love of spicy food, he doesn’t touch the stuff.

“It just tears me up so I don’t eat it.”

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