William was walking on the playground at Mitchell Child Development Center, and a metal construction fence felt on him; gave him a big bump on his forehead and several scratches on his face; I also found some scratches on his back and his right feet.
He has just started this school 2 months and got injured already!
The next day we had a meeting in the principal office with the Principal Mark Bello, his teacher Hana Suh and the school nurse. Mr. Bello apologized for what happened to William and promised that he would make sure the school is safe for all the children. This happened because the school is under construction; and a piece of the fence was left there leaning against the other fences without anyone noticed. So when William was walking by, that loose fence suddenly felt and hit William. They said William did not cry that much; and that they took him to the school nurse to apply ice to his face.
I received the call from school around 11:30 AM; so I came I picked him up right away. He looked so bad with lots of scratches on his face. I took the rest of the day off from work, took him home, fed him lunch and put him to bed for nap. He didn’t want to each lunch at all; I tried to feed him his favorite Macaroni & Cheese but he refused, and 1 time he wanted to vomit.
He drank his milk and felt asleep around 2:30 PM; woke up around 5:30 PM; he didn’t show any bad signs at all. I’m glad!
Update 2/6/2017:
Mrs. Hana called and said that they watched the video camera from the playground and found that the fence did not hit William. The fence was on the ground and William tripped and felt on it when walking by; he tripped a SECOND TIME when trying to run to the teachers. It was a big fence, and no one noticed it? And when he felt the first time, no one noticed that to come and help him? Where were all the teachers and assistants?
To be frank I’m glad to hear about this fact because the impact of tripping might be much less than a big fence hit on him, I think!
Update 2/8/2017:
Met with Mrs. Hana and Mr. Bello at his office to watch the video clip of the incident. The camera angle is really far from where the incident so all I could see was a very small and blurry image of William running around (he was wearing a yellow sweatshirt) on the new concrete area which is next to the playground. No one else was there at that time. He was walking to the fence near the street to watch the cars passing by and walking around, jumping up and down looking very happy. Then he felt with his forehead, stood up and then felt again on his butt. It’s really blurry that I could not see if he hit the fence or on the ground. Mr. Bello’s assumption is that by looking at the pictures that Mrs. Hana took, there was lots of concrete stuffs on his face so he said he might not hit the fence.
Mr. Bello said there’s some skipping of the video that he didn’t see how William walked to this area from the playground.
They said there was 3 adults supervised 8 children at the time; but 1 adult needed to go to the bathroom; and there was some issue that the other adults needed to resolve with the kids so no one really saw the whole incident. When William ran to them for help, they saw the fence on the ground so they assumed that the fence felt on him. This is why they told us this story the first time. According to them, they knew William was walking in that new area but wasn’t aware of the fence on the floor.
Mrs. Hana said that she has changed her schedule to make sure at least 3 adults will supervise the kids when they’re on the playground to make sure no incident like this will happen again. And that the new concrete area is blocked for now; but they will open it when it’s ready (this is the bike area) and they will make sure at least 1 adult will watch this area.
Update 2/10/2017:
This morning when I dropped William off at class, I asked Mrs. Hana if I could have a copy of the images that she took. She said yes. But soon she called me and said that Mr. Bello said no video or images should be given to me.
When I picked William up when school ended; Mrs. Hana said the picture that she took is AFTER William’s bruises were cleaned at the nurse office so it’s nothing different then what I saw when I picked him up on the day of incident. I was hoping that if I could see the pictures of William right after he felt to see how bad it was but I guess that was too much to ask.