NEWBERRY, S.C. -- South Carolina health officials said they have identified two “probable” cases of swine flu in the state and a private school headmaster said those are linked to a student trip to Mexico.

The announcement from the state Department of Health and Environmental Control said more testing will be conducted at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Word of the probable cases comes a day after a private school in Newberry closed because some students felt ill after a trip to Mexico, where there has been an outbreak of swine flu.

Newberry Academy Headmaster Bob Dawkins said Tuesday health officials told him one of his students probably had the illness and the other probable case involved a friend of that student.

The school remained closed Tuesday.

Newberry Student Talks About Illness

Adam Roberts, a senior at Newberry Academy who was part of the group, said the excursion was part of a senior trip that the students had been planning since the beginning of the year.

Roberts said that as the group was coming back from the four-day trip he began to get sick.

“I started this cough,” Roberts said, “this real nasty cough.”

Roberts said his cough became so bad that he had to go to a hospital. He said the doctors ran tests and told him he had pneumonia. He said, by that time, his classmates began to have similar symptoms.

“I just felt horrible,” Roberts said. “I couldn’t hold my head up and it was like the worst feeling I’ve ever felt.”

Roberts said that he had never thought he and his fellow students were exposed to the swine flu until he saw news reports about the outbreak in Mexico.

“It’s scary to know that people are dying from it,” Roberts said.

Roberts said that he and his classmates were sent back to doctors to have more tests performed.

“They swabbed us,” Roberts said. “(They) swabbed our noses or whatever and sent it off.”

Roberts said doctors have put him on a regimen of Tamiflu, a medication used to treat influenza. He said that most of the people who became ill during the trip are recovering.