Am­bi­ka Ja­gas­sars­ingh

am­bi­ka.ja­gas­sars­ingh@guardian.co.tt

A 13-year-old San Juan North Sec­ondary School stu­dent was on Tues­day night re­cov­er­ing from in­juries he sus­tained af­ter he was hit on the head by a piece of falling con­crete.

What start­ed out as an in­no­cent stroll around the school at lunchtime Tues­day, turned in­to a dis­as­ter for the stu­dent.

The young boy, who was ac­com­pa­nied by a friend, was walk­ing along the ground floor when a slab of con­crete from the sec­ond floor gave way, col­lid­ing with both him and his friend. How­ev­er, while the oth­er stu­dent suf­fered mi­nor in­juries, he was not so for­tu­nate.

The stu­dent suf­fered a deep gash to his head which re­quired six stitch­es.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia hours af­ter the in­ci­dent, the child’s moth­er, Natasha Alexan­der, said she re­ceived a call from the school in­form­ing her of the in­jury her child had suf­fered.

She said, “They said that my son was in­jured, some­thing fell and hit him, so I came im­me­di­ate­ly to them and when I got there, his head was al­ready ban­daged up but his school shirt and pants were cov­ered in blood.”

Alexan­der said af­ter he was hit by the con­crete slab, “he looked and he saw his blood run­ning down his face, so he just held his head and walked to the of­fice and told who­ev­er he met there that he’s bleed­ing and they at­tend­ed to him af­ter­wards.”

Ac­cord­ing to the boy’s par­ents, the in­ci­dent oc­curred around lunchtime but they were not no­ti­fied un­til about an hour had passed.

“The cut was re­al­ly re­al­ly bad. He had to get about six to sev­en stitch­es on it and well that was just about it, they didn’t call an am­bu­lance or any­thing...I took him, I walked down with him and I took him to the hos­pi­tal for my­self,” she added.

Af­ter speak­ing with the prin­ci­pal of the school, Alexan­der said, “They said that it is be­ing rec­ti­fied and that they sent down the in­for­ma­tion to the min­istry and the prob­lem is be­ing rec­ti­fied with the school and what­ev­er med­ical bills I have, they said they will see about it, we’ll get first pref­er­ence if we go to the hos­pi­tal.”

Alexan­der said she was told to keep a close eye on her son due to the ex­tent of his sus­tained head in­juries.

She said, “He’s in a lot of pain right now, his face is swollen, his head is still ban­daged up and that’s about it. He’s just home in pain...They just said to mon­i­tor him be­cause he might get some seizures and be­cause of the im­pact of the lash to his head.”

Alexan­der said her son was left trau­ma­tised by the in­ci­dent and that he was now not com­fort­able with re­turn­ing to school at this time, since he was dis­turbed by what had oc­curred.

De­spite all of this, the woman said she was grate­ful her son is alive.

“This could not on­ly have hap­pened to my son; it could have hap­pened to any­body and it could have been worse than what hap­pened yes­ter­day,” she not­ed.

Alexan­der said the school was sus­pend­ed af­ter the in­ci­dent.

How­ev­er, while at the school, Guardian Me­dia saw stu­dents present and was told by Alexan­der that they were mem­bers of the foot­ball team that is par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League (SS­FL).

A teacher at the school con­firmed that those stu­dents were in­deed foot­ballers and their sup­port­ers. Ac­cord­ing to the teacher, the prin­ci­pal of the school was aware that these stu­dents were on the com­pound yes­ter­day evening.

Con­tact­ed for a re­sponse yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said she was aware of the un­for­tu­nate sit­u­a­tion and not­ed that the stu­dent had been re­ceiv­ing med­ical at­ten­tion.

She al­so added that the min­istry will con­tin­ue to pro­vide sup­port for his re­cov­ery.

The min­is­ter al­so said the school had been iden­ti­fied for ex­ten­sive re­pair in Sep­tem­ber and work should be­gin this month.