As you've probably realised from my previous posts - I am immensely fond of the pupils that I teach. They make my epic commute bearable through their enthusiasm for my subject and their generally quirky outlooks on life. In a school full of nice kids, D. has always stood out. He's a great boy - keen to do well, but still 'one of the lads'. Earlier today he was in tears because his final performance assessment didn't go perfectly. He's one of several hundred kids that I'm proud to be associated with.
On the way home from school today, maybe 250 metres from the school gate, there was a loud bang and D. was suddenly bleeding profusely from a head wound. His friends (he's only 12 years old) and some adult witnesses called the police and the ambulance. My colleague happened to be passing on her way home. She saw a group of pupils from our school and stopped. Once she had sorted out what was happening, she called me and asked me to tell the Senior Management Team that one of pupils had been involved in what appeared to be a serious incident. As soon as I heard what had happened I went to join them, along with one of the Assistant Heads.
At around 4.30pm D. went by ambulance to the main regional hospital, where someone should be able to determine if he was hit by a bullet. He's lucky that the wound isn't life-threatening - just a glancing blow. Again, I'm proud to be associated with these kids and other great people in the community. A lot of D's blood was on his friends and a person, who lived nearby, invited the boys indoors to clean up. These two young lads then talked clearly and calmly to the police.
At the moment we have to hope that it was just a terrible accident - maybe involving an air rifle or something else that exploded and caught somehow caught the side of D's head. It's too terrible to think that some-one would deliberately OR randomly decide to fire at a child's head, in broad daylight on the penultimate night of term.
Stand and Stare... My blog about crochet and crafting; concerts and countryside; cooking, cars and cats.
Oh my goodness Jan, how horrible is that? Lets hope it was just a terrible accident and not a deliberate attack.Thank goodness he wasnt badly injured.
ReplyDeleteWhat a dreadful thing to happen. You are justly proud of these caring and thoughtful pupils who stuck by their friend- praying all is well again soon - but what a horrid end to your term.
ReplyDeleteOh my, I am relieved to hear it was not life threatening. Twelve years old is so young. This is not the way you want to end a term. So sorry.
ReplyDeleteHow very sad this is. I hope that the child isn't hurt badly.
ReplyDeleteBalisha
Horrifying ,,,,do hope the lad will be ok. Just cannot fathom someone shooting at a child! Do they suspect he shot at himself perhaps? Poor boy .......what an awful experience for all.
ReplyDeleteAmanda :-)
This is horrific. I'm so sorry, I hear stories like this one too many times here in the States. This is sad and I hope the boy will come out completely healthy and that this incident was an accident.
ReplyDeleteTammy x
Goodness, how terrible. I wonder where all this will end, accident or no accident, what are people doing with air rifles near schools? I do hope D recovers well and is not seriously injured.
ReplyDeleteThat's awful, and Jo has summed up just how I felt as I read your post. Who in their right mind uses an air rifle anywhere near a populated area, let alone when children are leaving a school?
ReplyDeleteHoping all involved recover quickly from injury and the shock of seeing this happen.
Oh how awful and just at the end of term too......do so hope all improves x
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness! I do hope your pupil recovers well. I expect physically it will be quicker than mentally. What a dreadful thing to happen.
ReplyDeleteOh that's terrible, I do hope the child is on the road to recovery and pray to God that it was just an accident.
ReplyDeletePatricia x
I'm so sorry to hear this. I hope your pupil is recovering and you have now found out what happened and why. It must have been a terrible shock at the end of term. Thinking of you all.
ReplyDeleteSuch a shock for this young child. We can only hope it was a horrible accident. The shock for this young man to realize he had been shot, on purpose, for fun by some maniac, would take away his innocence. Children, nowadays, seem to have so few years of pure innocence!
ReplyDeleteGosh! I agree with all the other commenters - what a shocking thing to happen. I hope D is ok.
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness. Hope it works out right!
ReplyDeleteOh no! When I first started reading your post, I thought you were going to say it was self-inflicted because he was so upset. I hope it was something like you said rather than an intentional drive by. Those are far too frequent here I'm afraid. I hope the young man recovers quickly.
ReplyDeleteHow awful, I hope everything turns out okay for the young man.
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