Death of child who had asthma attack at school

[MillyR]

I don't understand how this can have happened. I was wondering if people in general are not aware that if someone cannot speak normally due to asthma they need to go to A and E straight away? This child's lips had gone blue, but still no ambulance was called. It must have been very distressing for the boy who tried to help him as well.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1258705/Boy-11-dies-asthma-attack-left-die-school-corridor.html

Am utterly shocked by this story. Schools are so obsessed with health and safety they ban conker fights, but they leave a child to die in a corridor?

I do think the teacher should be charged with manslaughter actually.

I think its absolutely shocking

I remember as a first year student teacher sending a p5 to the office because he said he felt unwell and had a sore neck and I immediately thought oh shit maybe its meningitis. (He was fine btw) But its a basic role of the teacher to look after pupils, pupils welfare comes above any paper work/meeting.

My niece tells me that her school do not allow the children to take their inhalers! I hope to god she has got hold of the wrong end of the stick!

5 members of staff suspended :

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/8584511.stm

This is terrifying. I had really bad asthma as a child and the main problem I found is that when you are short of breath you don't have the energy to 'insist' on anything. You focus so much on breathing that you can't do anything else, and (especially if you are quiet or shy by nature) one refusal could quite easily lead to you saving all your energy for breathing rather than trying to find help a different way.

I am so scared DS will have it, he is 18 months and with 2 asthmatic parents has a reasonably high chance, but no sign so far, fingers crossed.

In retrospect, I am more impressed than ever with the young staff at our local ice rink last month, who saw my DS struggling to breathe after a fall, asked if he had asthma, stayed with him for five minutes and then insisted on calling an ambulance, rather to his embarrassment. (In fact, he'd damaged a chest muscle, but their reaction was spot on. Have written to thank them, and I hope it's passed on.)

Does anyone know of a poster, or information sheet that can be printed out and pinned up/kept by school?

Dd1 has asthma, and although her keyworker is aware and I have shown her how to help dd with her inhaler, I am thinking the information should be made clearer for everyone - signs to watch out for, when to call for help etc.

This is so tragic, and I am just stunned by it really.

Hazeyjane - this might be a good place to start looking for info :

www.asthma.org.uk/how_we_help/schools_early_years/index.html

AS far as I know, teachers are trained in teaching, and not medical conditions....so our childrens welfare depends on the common sence of individual teachers, and any medical knowledge they happen to have picked up, or think they have.

I think schools should have trained staff to prevent such a tragedy happening again.

I need to know my children are being cared for, not just educated when they are at school.

Thanks Sassybeast, I actually ordered a load of school action cards, and downloaded the info for preschool this morning. I also asked if all the staff could watch me give dd her inhaler, so that they knew how to administer it.

You'd think that a secondary school would have protocol in place to deal with this sort of thing. It is very worrying.

This is very tragic but I do think it's unfair to whooly blame the teacher.

His mother wsa called sometime after 2.15pm and she did not take him to hospital until 5.20pm. I may be wrong but I don't imagine he was at school until 5.20 if his parents had been notified earler on in the day.

going.. have you read the story? They did not do anything I would definitely blame the teacher, "in loco parentis" mean anything to you. It is the usual " stand back and don't touch policy" Feenie I haven't seen you "pile on" in this one, where are you???

I'm a secondary teacher (& asthmatic, as is my eldest child).

I'm utterly shocked by this. It's not manslaughter (she didn't actually DO anything to cause this boy's death), but it's certainly something I'd expect to be the end of my teaching career.

Which would be the least of my worries actually; I'd never be able to forgive myself

Most schools do have protocols in place, yes. We're probably a bit more genned up on anaphylactic shock tbh, which is the usual regular training event, but certainly I'd expect to go immediately to a student having an asthma attack (or anything else where they were ill/distressed).

I'm not one of the 'First Aider' staff team, so I'd then immediately send another student for a First Aider - meanwhile I'd be doing the obvious common sense stuff like getting the student to use their inhaler/sending another message for their spare inhaler, if they didn't have one on them.

If their condition wasn't swiftly relieved by use of an inhaler, an ambulance would be called.

All this is routine. It's an absolutely shocking story