Did anything really tragic happen at your school?

[TattiePants]

I’ve spent today thinking about a murder that happened when I was at school over 30 years ago. I think it’s on my mind partly because it happened when I was sitting my GCSEs and DS is doing his now but also it’s been in the local news that another loosely connected child murder may finally be solved.

A boy from year 3 went missing and he was found murdered in a nearby derelict house. In the year prior to that, two other children had been killed in tragic circumstances so it was a really horrible time for the school community. Things got worse when a year 5 boy was arrested for the murder and spent months in custody, missing all his GCSEs. Many of us then had to give witness statements as we knew the arrested boy well. It took over 20 years for the actual murderer to be convicted and unfortunately he’d gone on to murder more boys from my school by then.

In all the years my DCs and friend’s DCs have been at school, they’ve (thankfully) never had anything like this. There’s been fights, teenage pregnancies, minor drug offences etc but nothing on this scale. Did anyone else have something really tragic happen when they were at school.

Two I can think of, a 13 year old boy lost his leg when the vehicle he was in overturned- farm equipment being driven by his 15 yr old sister.
The other one will stay with me forever, aged 11 our year was taken into a special assembly to be told that one of our classmates had been killed in a fire along with most of her family. Only her baby brother survived because he was at his grans house overnight.

I don’t think this is ghoulish. I think it is moving and tragic and sad but ultimately a positive thing to remember those who have passed in such tragic circumstances.

A girl died, she was diabetic. People said her Dad had been beating her up and she stopped taking her medication on purpose so that she died.

A 14 year old got pregnant and her parents kicked her out and she went to live with foster carers who didn't really care for her.. She was a nice girl. She had developed physically very early and was targeted by older men.

Was this in the north east? I came on the thread to say not me, but one of DD's classmates, her brother and mother were murdered in their home. It was two streets over from us.

In primary 2 a classmate was killed by a drunk driver. He was 7 years old. A beautiful boy with a lovely nature. I still think about him almost 40 years later and wish I could tell his devastated parents that I still remember their beautiful son. He was an only child and his mothers absolute joy, she told me my mum once at school that it had taken 15 years to have a child. So cruel, the drunk driver walked away with bruising after killing a child, paralysing a 21 year old women and leaving other children with life altering injuries. He crashed into a mini bus taking kids to a swimming pool.

This.

This was an urban myth in everyone's school in the 80s! It supposedly happened at mine before I went there too.

I’m not going to go into too much detail because it’s horrific, but a few years after I’d left my secondary school two girls were tortured, raped and one murdered. The other only survived because she pretended to be dead. It was all over the news and the details of the case are just so sad.

At primary school my class had an awful lot of house fires. I’m not sure what had caused them, but it made me terrified of fire for a long time

Nearly every year I was in school something tragic happened! One year it was 2 brothers who were killed in a car accident with their stepdad. Another year was a girl collapsing during PE and dying. A lad in my year went missing on a night out and was found a week later at the bottom and of a canal.

My friend died in what was claimed as a tragic accident, but its never added up he was 14 when he was 13 he was hit by a car and never went back to normal, at 14 on a family holiday he drowned in a lake, what made no sense was he would never had gone swimming he didn't like water and also his step dad was a abusive price 20 years later I still believe the stepdad killed him,

A friend fell from her bike, not wearing a helmet, and had permanent brain damage. I was in primary school then and was so disturbed at how such a regular thing as riding our bikes could bring about such a dramatic change in someone.

Another friend was hit and killed walking at night with another friend, whom he pushed to safety before being struck. Killed instantly. We all used to wear just about the same dark anorak and dark jeans, making us fairly invisible to cars until we show up in their headlights which apparently is too late. So glad today clothing often has a bit of reflective material on it.

next was someone I knew who got drunk driving home from a club. She got onto the motorway the wrong direction and had a head on collision killing sisters driving in the other car and a mutual friend in her car. Driver was jailed for vehicular homicide (this is not UK),

What a morbid, horrible thread. I don't understand this mentality of sharing sad stories of deaths, not even people you knew well. It's weird and I question the OP's motives. It's really "oooh, tell me stories of people who died at your school!"....

Yes, 2 died in my last year of school but I won’t be sharing the details, one was murder and one a tragic accident. Sadly I think it’s just something that many would have experienced because accidents and murder happens, just seems so tragic when it happens to school age children/teens.

A friend of mine won " young driver of the year" shortly after getting her driver's licence. A few weeks later she was killed in a horrific motorcycle accident . We all went to her funeral in our uniforms. That was the first time I knew of someone being killed.

A boy in our year got killed after being knocked down by a car when he was 17. A boy in my brother's year died of cancer at 17.

Looks like 17 is a pretty unlucky age at our school (sixth form, I suppose).

When I was in primary school a boy in my class and his family died from carbon monoxide poisoning. It was really sad. The next door neighbour also died because it leaked through the attic into her house 😔

One boy in my class died of a drug overdose, this was around 1969-70, we were quite unworldly back then as we knew pretty well next to nothing about drugs and had no idea he took them. He was actually a really nice boy too. Very shocking at the time.

Another boy a year above us died in a terrible accident when he was hit by a car.

That is awful.
nothing quite on that scale but we had the death of our friend when we were in year 8 when he was hit by a car, suicides, and we were one of the schools mentioned in 3 girls.

A lad in my year was run over and died.

It was his fault unfortunately (cycling whilst drunk) and I often wonder how the poor car driver felt.

It was just such a tragic situation and waste of a use a teenager was enjoying pushing the boundaries of being a teenager.

Why is it a gore fest for other people to remember tragic events from their past, but not for you? Some people need to talk about things that affected them.
Shame on you for trying to shame them.

In junior school during the summer holidays a girl got hit by a car and died, it wasn't until we went back in September I realised it was my friend, her older brother always blamed himself and I hope he now realises it was an accident.
In senior school a girl got pregnant at 14 and her parents supported her and they brought the baby up, then another child who was a famous baby actor died from inhaling aerosols, and finally another child who was badly disfigured from a car accident took his own life just after sitting his GCSEs (we were the first to take them so over 30 years ago) when we went to the school to collect our results his name was there as he had really good scores as he was so bright.

I took my son out of junior school due to a boy who was truly evil (I never believed children could be evil before this) I explained my reasons before removing my son as he was in year 6, after he left this bit in question sexully abused a 4 year old while in school, my son has been gone educated ever since and we were lucky enough to get him a place 3 days a week in a rural private college, he is now sitting his GCSEs and has his college interview on Wednesday we are so proud of him as he is a really lovely lad.

Some people need to talk about things that affected them.

In most of these posts, people are writing about people & events unconnected to them directly. Sure, it could have affected them hearing about it at the time but it is utterly prurient to share specific, distressing, identifying details of the worst moments of families lives. These are not the worst moments of the lives of (most of) the posters here. It's just awful.

I'm continuing to report & hope that MN will step up.

Gosh, when I saw this thread title I couldn’t actually think of anything, but as I’ve read more and more things have come to mind…

In year 6 a boy was hit by a car just after getting off the school bus and died.

2 boys died of cancer throughout high school.

A 6th former died joy riding. His parents did a lot of fund raising in the area to help discourage young people from driving dangerously.

I went to a fairly decent school in a fairly decent area, but I still recognise looking back at my classmates that a lot of them came from quite deprived backgrounds. Things that didn’t occur to me as a child suddenly made sense as an adult in hind sight. I remember I used to have a friend who was always taking other people’s lunch, and would often take from the shy children without many friends as they were the least likely to rat her out. I thought it was horrible of her and could never understand it, but it’s only now I look back and realise it was because she was regularly sent to school without any lunch herself to eat 😕

A very close friend of mine died from complications of anorexia at only 14.
We had drifted apart a bit by then as she'd went into inpatient care and I wasn't allowed to visit often.
I think about her often and wish she'd had a chance to live more of her life.

I think that having a classmate murdered when you're very young, for example, absolutely does affect you directly and there is a direct connection. When DD's classmate was murdered it deeply affected her for a long time, as it did for many other children in her school. Nobody is suggesting for one moment that the trauma is anything approaching that of the victim's loved ones, but these things can cause lasting distress to children and they'll remember it even as adults. DD is in her 20s now and she still thinks of her friend often.