ELERATON Blair, principal of the Barrett Town All-Age School, says he is deeply distressed over Monday’s fatal stabbing of a grade six student, allegedly by a classmate during a fight over a chair.
For the grieving Blair and other members of the school’s staff, being accused of failing to act promptly in getting the wounded student to hospital in a timely manner, could not be further from the truth.
In fact, the grief-stricken principal pointed out that as soon as he and other teachers learnt that 12-year-old Shyheim Lewis, also called Chin of the Jenkins Corner in Barrett Town, St James, was stabbed, they rushed to his assistance. The wounded student, he said, was then whisked off to hospital in his motor car.
“We heard a broadcast suggesting that we were negligent and we did not respond as quickly as possible and that is very, very much untrue. We tried our very best. Within minutes the child was in the car and we took the child to the hospital, myself and the guidance counsellor,” a solemn- looking Blair told the Jamaica Observer West on Tuesday.
Hours after the fatal stabbing, Lewis’ distraught mother, Jacinth Johnson, lamenting her son’s tragic end, said that his life could have been saved if the teachers had taken him to hospital earlier.
“Them cut him and teachers say them don’t want them car to blood up, so them allow the child to bleed to death. When we go over deh the pickney dem a bawl and the teacher dem stand up so,” claimed the grieving mother. She also accused personnel at the school for failing to contact her following the incident.
But Blair contends that numerous efforts to make contact with the wounded student’s parents proved futile.
“We tried calling the parents on numerous occasions and we did not get a response. So that is the truth of the matter,” he said.
Blair also refuted Johnson’s claim that on two previous occasions, she was not contacted by the school when in one instance a student stabbed her daughter with a pencil and in the other, a student struck her son with a stone.
“I can speak of the instance when the child was hit and once again we called her and did not get any response. We called numerous times and we did not get through to her,” Blair said.
He said messages were also sent to the mother, as the parents of the child who inflicted the wound were contacted and were prepared to cover all medical expenses.
“We sent messages because we wanted to have a meeting with the parents of the child who did it and herself and we were told that the child was not taken to hospital,” the grieving Barrett Town All- Age principal reflected.
He, however, expressed his condolences to Johnson.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday the handful of students who turned up at the school, received counselling from a team dispatched to the school by the Ministry of Education.
Reports are that about 10:30am on Monday a fight broke out between Lewis and one of his 12-year-old classmates, during which a knife was brought into play. Lewis succumbed to a stab wound inflicted to his neck.
According to students who were overheard relating the incident, the two boys, who both sat GSAT last week, had a heated argument which escalated into a fight.
Meanwhile, Lewis’ alleged killer, who is reportedly from the Vietnam section of Barrett Town, was taken into custody at the Barrett Town Police Station.
On Tuesday, Jason Cummings, the People’s National Party’s councillor for the Rose Hall Division, told Observer West that he has initiated a peace initiative at the school in the wake of the killing.
“We have started a peace initiative this morning where seven of the students, including a sister of the deceased became a part of this peace initiative. And I will work with other schools and this school in particular because I am a past student of this school and we want to ensure that we have no reoccurrences of this, or any of similar nature,” said Cummings.
**AS I SAID IN THE POST YESTERDAY THE PROCEDURE AT PRIMARY SCHOOLS WHEN A CHILD GETS SICK IS TO CALL THE PARENTS…………IT IS STATED IN THE ARTICLE JUST AS I SAID…**
She caan sue the sch fi neglect? !?!
(Simplicity soon sign in)
Mi see residents I neva glimpse not 1 personnel and that child look like him was there fi sometime.
That principal must be having a laugh (promptly)? So how come the child body was laying down in a pool of blood till residents could even enter the school premises to video smh
911 don’t work in Jamaica? Is it the teachers responsible to take a child in their car.
911 won’t work in Jamaica as the # is 119 .
There is no way that they rushed the child when it happen…that body was there fi a while fi blood bleed out so bad..an u can hear smaddy say dem call ambulance an all now..an u watch more u can hear someone asking bout di car weh parked ina di school..I believe the mother story..dem mek him tan deh bleed to death