Posted on 04/26/2005 7:12:28 PM PDT by new cruelty
PHILADELPHIA -- A third-grader at a Philadelphia public school was found hanging on a hook in a coatroom closet Tuesday and police aren't yet sure exactly what happened.
Sources told NBC 10 News that the 9-year-old boy is in intensive care at St. Christopher's Hospital. School officials and Philadelphia police are trying to find out if his hanging was an accident or if it was intentional.
The boy attends Pennypacker Samuel School on East Washington Lane in the West Oak Lane section of Philadelphia.
According to the Philadelphia public schools chief executive officer, Paul Vallas, about 9:30 a.m. a teacher sent the boy to the closet to hang up his coat.
"The one child in question had not hung up his coat, so he was asked to go to the coat room and hang up his coat. When he didn't come out -- (the teacher) described it as a minute, a minute and a half in the coatroom -- and then she called him and then went in and she saw him hanging from his uniform," Vallas said.
A school official administered CPR to the boy, who was unconscious.
School administrators said that none of the other students saw the boy unconscious in the closet, but NBC 10 News has learned that a student who was in the class at the time had a different story.
With his mother's permission, the student told NBC 10 that it was not the teacher who found the student in the closet.
"He went in the closet and my friends heard some noise, so they went to go check on him and they saw him and he wasn't breathing," the boy said. He said those boys then told the teacher.
NBC 10 brought this discrepancy to the attention of school officials who, at this time, continue to believe the teacher's account of what happened.
Vallas met with the boy's guardians -- his grandparents -- at the hospital.
"They just wanted an explanation of what happened, and we told them that the police were investigating, and obviously the school district is doing its own investigation. We just want to find out exactly what happened," Vallas said.
Vallas said that the grandparents told him there were no signs that the child was upset or depressed in any way.
Something fishy went on there...
Lord have mercy...something isn't quite right here
Bullys or worse
Yep. He didn't just put himself on the hook. I also wonder how he was knocked unconscious.
ONZ! How awful! My mother went to that elementary school in the early 1940's.
WHERE ARE THE PARENTS??
Ah, well that makes sense. Thanks. : )
Hanging cut off his air supply. I don't think he was knocked unconscious.
Yes. I imagine at least 4 more people will post something similar down the thread.
This must be more of that "socialization" that homeschooled kids are missing out on.
LOL...I think we were all typing at the same time. Want me to say it again? ;-)
Do you think it's possible he was trying to play a joke and somehow hung himself there? We have no details... it's possible he stood on something and then it flew out from under him.
He went out after only one minute?
LOL. Sure, why not. :)
Between the restriction of air and the restriction of the blood flow to the brain, it only takes a minute. If he'd broken his neck (not easily done from a closet hook) it would have been death.
I used to chin myself between two hooks - can't quite see how I would have got my collar tangled. Poor boy - prayers for his recovery.
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