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.
Amelia, I have taken the time to read back through the exchanges between you and wintertime. While I did not find the exact quote rat troll ... I do agree that wintertime's accusation that a long, long time FReeper might be a paid troll was over the top and a bit unnecessary.While I have nothing but contempt for what the public schools in this country have become ... I do recognize that some of the teachers are dedicated individuals ... who should probably be encouraged to practice their skills in a more useful environment.
The same thing that is happening to them right now ... they would still be feral children turning into feral adults. I cannot see that the public schools are making any difference now ... and cannot see that the abolition of public schools would make any difference either. Perhaps without pretending to "educate" some of these "children" ... some real attention could be given to turning them into functioning adults with life and work skills.
The teacher also didn't prevent 911 from being called. Note that the story says they got multiple calls. This reads like a novice flack's effort to create a story out of a non-story. Probably the work of someone who graduated from the "where's FEMA" school of journalism.
"Nobody knew how to do the Heimlich maneuver? And nobody attempted CPR?"
Hell, they force the kids to learn CPR in sex ed class in all CT high schools. Must be more weight placed on the SEX in sex ed than useful medical treatments.
Just damn.
"He seemed to be in a hurry, and roughly took a bite of that hamburger which was about half of that hamburger," Martinsville Police Chief Frans Hollanders said.Tucker tried to expel the meat that was blocking his airway before friends attempted to perform the Heimlich maneuver on him to dislodge it. They were unsuccessful due to his large size.
Nurses who were at the school about 35 miles south of Indianapolis for a blood drive dislodged some meat from Tucker's throat and he was taken to Morgan County Hospital and Medical Center. A medical team worked for 45 minutes to revive him before pronouncing him dead.
From here. Other sources say the 15 year old weighed over 250 pounds.
Another freeper pointed me to this article, which paints a different story.
http://www.reporter-times.com/?module=displaystory&story_id=31179&format=html
I will try to post the results of the police investigation when it is made public. I will also try to remember to ping you.
I don't want to be rude, so I am apologizing for this in advance.
I don't buy your story. Perhaps there is more to the story, perhaps you left out some important detail inadvertently, but I do not believe a first grader was suspended for the chain on a Tweety-Bird key chain.
I am not calling you a liar, but without a reliable source I can not believe your story.
As I suppected, there was a bit more to the story.
It was ten inch chain on her wallet used to connect her key rings to her wallet. This is not even close to the Tweetybird key chain that was previously mentioned.
Although 10 inches may not sound long for a chain, with keys attached to the end, it can become a significant weapon.
Here are pictures of the TweetyBird wallet, chain, and keyring obtained from CNN.com archives:
~ Blue Jays ~
a teacher closed his phone saying cell phones aren't allowed on campus."
Stupid is as stupid does. This teacher should be fired for being to stupid to be responsible for anyone.
I was at a VFW function a few years ago, after the Memorial Day observances, and a Korean War vet started to choke on a bite of burger... I stepped behind him, gave him the hug and out it popped. No big deal, everybody went home alive. It works. Maybe the 911 operator could have talked someone through doing it had the teacher not done what she did. Sounds like panic-ville to me, and when you panic you fall back on really STUPID stuff. If the investigation shows that to be the case, the kid's family should become the new owners of everything she has and ever HOPES to have.
You must be a public school teacher.
I am. What sort of fact-based rebuttal is that, though?
You said that "race baiting tatics...resulted in zero tolerance/zero justice policies".
I replied:
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.
It is true that currently administrators use the rules to show that they aren't differentiating between students, but it's unclear as to whether or not any of the potential lawsuits are race-related.
Ok that is pretty neat, most children would have panicked.
Government schools at their worst......
Have you ever been involved in a controversial event and then read or watched a news account of it? ;-)
From the news account, apparently the student's airway wasn't totally blocked in the beginning, and apparently some of the first responders were able to clear it, but either not in time or there were confounding factors.
I hope the lesson learned from this tragedy is that some of those teacher prep days would be better spent in CPR and first aid training.
IMO, that would be more useful than 99.9% of the "in-service" training they force on us, but who knows?
Hopefully, the health classes will stop pushing the condoms and start teaching basic CPR, first aid, and other sensible subjects as preventing dehydration, and safe food preparation.
With all due respect, you aren't in the schools and your children were never in schools, so you don't really know what they are teaching in health classes.
Here is the high school health curriculum for my state. I'm sure it differs state to state. Ours is a bit heavy on the sex & drug prevention education, but it does include first aid and CPR.
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