Bullying is widespread in schools, and one Ohio mother is now highlighting the horrors of bullying. She’s sharing the story of how her son was brutally attacked by a classmate, and the school didn’t even call an ambulance for him. It evidently took his teacher a significant amount of time to notice that the boy was being assaulted. By the time the teacher noticed, the damage was done.
The mother called out the school for not acting fast enough to help her son, and then for not calling emergency services after learning how severely her son was hurt. Now, she wants to hold the school accountable for her son’s pain.
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The situation was a parent's worst nightmare.
Elizabeth Johnson says the Eastland Performance Academy in Columbus, Ohio, called her about her 11-year-old son. The boy, who started at the school a week and a half ago, was in an altercation. Her son barely knew the boy who allegedly brutally attacked him, and no one has any idea about why the attack even happened.
“I’m so angry, how could this happen to my child?” Johnson asked WBNS TV.
She had no idea what she was about to discover.
When Johnson got to the school, she says her son was bleeding profusely from one of his ears. School staff told Johnson her son’s teacher didn’t notice the attack happening until the end.
“She didn’t notice my son being picked up by his throat and punched in the head repeatedly, she didn’t notice my son being thrown into a window repeatedly, she didn’t notice my son’s head being slammed off of a desk repeatedly,” Johnson said.
Her son hysterically said to her: “âMommy, I didn’t do anything, I didn’t do anything. I don’t know why he did that.'”
The teacher tried to step in, but it didn't work.
According to Johnson, the teacher told her that she tried to separate the children, but she couldn’t do it.
“When you supposedly couldn’t get this child off, why didn’t you send a student to go get help from a teacher close by?” Johnson wondered. Her son was allegedly talking to a classmate when the boy came up and began attacking him, unprompted.
“That should have never happened to my child, certainly not as severe as that. There’s no excuse.”
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The mom says the school didn't do enough to help her child.
Johnson said that when she arrived at the school, staff had not called either the police or an ambulance. She requested an ambulance to take her son to the hospital, and while there, she asked for a social worker to file a police report.
Medical staff examined her son, and found that he had a cracked skull, a ruptured eardrum, bruises all over his body, and a concussion. Johnson added that her son told her he lost consciousness during the attack.
“My poor son tells me, âI begged him to stop. When I went unconscious, I thought I was dreaming, but I woke up and I was still being hit,â” she told WCMH. She told the outlet that recovery will take months, and that her son still can’t hear out of his left ear.
The school is currently investigating the incident.
In a statement shared by WBNS TV, Superintendent Jeff Luelleman said:
“The School is aware of and is addressing a possible physical altercation between students occurring on October 8 at the School. Staff are fully cooperating with requests from law enforcement in accordance with federal law requirements, and the School is taking steps pursuant to established procedures to ensure E-P-A remains a safe and productive learning environment for all students. The School is unable to comment further due to federal and state privacy law restrictions.”
Johnson, who will now homeschool her son, said that she’s still choosing to move forward with charges or a lawsuit.
“Bullying needs to be dealt with more severely, a lot more severely than it is,” she said. “This will never fully be over for him. He will always carry that trauma.”
