by SANKA?PRICE
A 14-YEAR-OLD BOY is a patient in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) with 20 stitches in his head after being struck by a piece of wood at school last Tuesday.
Right now he cannot walk and has no control of his bodily functions.
“Right now he gone back to baby stages,” his teary-eyed mother, Harriet Holligan, revealed.
“He is just lying there in the bed; he can’t stand up or nothing so,” she added.
A 15-year-old student from the same St Michael secondary school has been charged with causing serious bodily harm with intent to maim, disfigure or disable, or to do her son, Kemar Franklin, serious bodily harm.
The consequences of this incident of school violence has left a tightly-knit Spooners Hill, St Michael family traumatised, and a mother praying her son will be able to function normally again.
“The doctor is telling me he is going to take a long time to get back,” said Holligan.
She said the doctor explained that because her son was young they were hopeful for a good outcome, but didn’t know how long his recovery would take.
The QEH?doctor’s admission report stated that Franklin suffered from blunt head trauma, a depressed skull, cerebral edema and subarachnoid haemorrhage.
In layman’s terms, the blow caused his skull to crack and this resulted in swelling of the brain and bleeding on the brain.
Franklin’s shaved head has a long scar from just above the hairline onto the centre of the back of the head (similar to a Mohawk style) – evidence of the action doctors took to relieve the bleeding on his brain when he was rushed to surgery.
Looking at her son in his hospital bed on Wednesday, Holligan recounted what must be close to most parents’ worst nightmare. The mother of five said she received a call from her son’s school at a minute to midday telling her to come to the school immediately as her son was seriously injured.
She immediately left her job in James Street, The City, and was so disturbed that she began walking to get a taxi, forgetting that she had a car that day.
She even forgot to pay the taxi when she reached the school.
“When I get to the hall door I saw my child on the ground. All I could do was holler and faint,” Holligan said, biting her bottom lip as she tried to hold back tears.
She said seeing her son reminded her of his father, who passed away three years ago. He was lying motionless like that too.
“I was real upset,” she said.
Holligan visits the QEH twice a day to take care of Kemar. She said she goes early on mornings, between 5:30 and 6 a.m. to help bathe and feed him, then returns around 6:30 p.m. and stays up to midnight.
“It isn’t easy on me at all; I have other children and I can’t leave them unattended,” said Holligan, who has two younger children – a nine-year-old girl and a four-year-old boy.
She admitted, however, that she couldn’t help but spend as much time with Kemar in his time of need.
Her eldest son, Renaldo, 21, understands his mum’s predicament. He too is affected by the incident saying yesterday he “feels offset” by it.
As for Franklin, who is conscious and alert though suffering soreness at the neck and back of his head, he’s just hoping to be able to play football again soon, as he represented his school at the Under-16 and Under-19 level.
He told the WEEKEND NATION yesterday that he missed school, his family and playing football.
Holligan, who is praying for her son’s full recovery, had this message for other parents: “All we can do is pray that when our children leave home on morning that they get school safe and get back home safe.”