Posted on 03/10/2006 8:43:53 PM PST by Samwise
Several Martinsville High School students say teachers stopped their calls to 911 while a fellow student was choking, because cell phones aren't allowed on campus.
Witnesses tell police the victim was rushing to finish his lunch before leaving the cafeteria, because you can't bring food outside. That's when they say he started choking, went into cardiac arrest, and died at the hospital.
Multiple 911 calls went out from Martinsville High School.
Witnesses say Jesse Tucker choked on a hamburger. Paramedics rushed the 15 year-old freshman to the hospital, where he later died.
"It's really hard to grasp the fact that you witnessed someone's death," says one student, "It's really hard to take in."
24 Hour News 8 spoke to another student witness who also wants to remain anonymous. He says one of his friends tried to call 911 with his cell phone, but just as he reached an operator, he says a teacher closed his phone saying cell phones aren't allowed on campus.
"She just closed his phone. She didn't do much to help the situation. She was panicky, she didn't go to the nurse's office," says one of the students.
Martinsville Police Chief Frans Hollanders says the investigation is still in preliminary stages, and at this point, investigators aren't pointing fingers.
"We've heard rumors to such an effect, that a cell phone was slapped out of a kids hand," Hollanders says, "We haven't been able to determine that at all whatsoever."
School officicals wouldn't talk on camera, but we caught up with an assistant superintendent and he issued this statement, "We are still in shock. We do believe the teacher did everything she could in the situation."
The police chief is encouraging witnesses to share their stories with investigators.
24 Hour News 8 did speak to Jesse's father Friday night. Understandably, he says he's still in shock and just wants to know exactly what happened.
An autopsy is scheduled for Saturday morning.
I used to think that our public schools were zoos and that teachers were the zookeepers. I've come to realize that our public schools are zoos, the administrators are the zookeepers, and the teachers are the monkeys.
it is also possible that you are a giraffe.
Obviously a public school. I'll be there was a lot of diversity, though.
The only common link to your kid's situation was that there was a HS kid in distress and there was a death. Recall that there was the eating of a hamburgere here which you easily dismiss and import all your extraneous facts to this situation. The lack of judgment which you exhibit here was also involved in this tragedy: the dumb teacher thought she knew something too, and relied on that rule rather than real perception and proper judgment--which had probably atrophied from teaching in a public HS. God save us all.
Thanks, Amelia.
BTTT
The industry?
All I see in this story is a parade of idiots.
**A previous poster claimed that zero tolerance policies were a way for school administrators to appear anti-racist when "expel[ling] gang members, rapists, violent attackers and murderers", who were presumably all black, by giving said administrators a way to expel white boys for minor offenses.**
Your comments still don't make sense in light of what was posted by me on race baiting tatics which resulted in zero tolerance/zero justice policies.
As someone on the thread has already pointed out, CPR does no good until the airway is cleared.
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Certification in CPR includes the Heimlich. It's part of the "P"in CPR. It clears the pulmonary or airway system.
That's because your entire premise is wrong.
If you'll do even a cursory search about "zero tolerance", you'll find it was enacted not because of "race-baiting" or fairness issues, but because of fears of school violence, sparked in part by widely publicized school shootings.
You'll also find that most research shows that minorities are more likely to be punished under zero-tolerance policies.
What happened is his child tried to eat a hamburger too fast and wound up choking. That is the proximate cause of his death. The business with the cell phones and everything else has very little to do with it.
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What struck me was that this young man was rushing to finish his lunch. Why? Because he was not allowed to take food outside.
Why did he have too little time to eat? If the school was responsible for his having too little time, why wasn't he given more time?
"And no one used Heimlich?"
Obviously not, probably wasn't allowed in school.
You might want to look at post #155. Several other articles in local newspapers gave information that's lacking in this one.
Would you rather that your tax money be spent fighting the lawsuits filed by the NAACP, etc., asserting that the schools are racist or negligent?
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I'd really like to see the privatization of universal K-12 education. Now,,THAT would be a real tax savings. It would also end a lot of this nuttiness.
Even a Heimlich improperly done is better than leaving the poor person to die.
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