Photos provided by the girl’s mother showed that skull fragments and foreign material were removed from her brain. PHOTOS: CHENZHOUBEIHUFAYUAN/WEIBO
BEIJING (The Straits Times/ANN): A male teacher in China has left a student seriously injured and requiring major surgery to remove foreign objects from her brain, after his attempt at a punishment went horribly wrong.
The nine-year-old girl, a fourth-year student at Meixi Lake Primary School in the city of Changsha, Hunan, was taken to hospital on Sept 6 for craniotomy procedures that lasted nearly five hours, Chinese media reported.
Craniotomy is the surgical removal of part of the bone from the skull to expose the brain.
Photos provided by the girl’s mother showed that skull fragments and foreign material, presumed to be a part of the set square made of tempered glass and used by the teacher to hit her, were removed from her brain.
The teacher, surnamed Song, was arrested on suspicion of causing intentional injury, the local police said on Sept 7. While investigations are ongoing, the local education authority said the teacher and his supervisor have been suspended from duty.
Song was reportedly attempting to “hit” a student sitting in the fifth row, a row behind the girl.
According to the girl’s mother, Ms Wang Yun, identified in Chinese media by a pseudonym, the school authorities informed her that Song miscalculated the distance between him and his target, resulting in the set square injuring the unsuspecting girl who reportedly had her head down while doing schoolwork at the time.
Ms Wang was also reportedly incredulous when the school authorities told her that the surveillance camera was not working that day.
The incident came to light last week when Ms Wang sent a message to a group of other parents of her daughter’s classmates.
In a screenshot of the chat circulated online, the mother accused Song of cruelly attacking her daughter, labelling him as “not a teacher, but a murderer” and the school’s staff as “bad people with black hearts”.
According to Ms Wang, school employees had sought to cover up the injury by stitching her wound together against her wishes at a provincial hospital.
A family member managed to stop the stitching by rushing to the hospital, she told Chinese daily, The Paper, but the girl was fast losing consciousness.
Her family was also shocked by the girl’s blood-drenched uniform and shoes, Ms Wang said, adding that there was a wound of about 4cm long on the left of her daughter’s head.
CT scans taken at two hospitals led doctors to conclude that there were foreign materials in her head, and she was operated upon to remove part of her skull to access the brain.
Ms Wang said doctors showed her fragments of the set square and skull material they retrieved, and told her the girl, who is recuperating, would have been worse off had the surgery been delayed.
A video circulated on Weibo on Sept 8 showed the girl well enough to respond to a doctor. She is also seen lifting her legs and holding the doctor’s hand when asked to.
The Paper quoted Ms Wang as saying that she is in a critical condition with fever and swelling. Her skull is being held together by a steel plate after surgery, the mother said.
The Paper reported that there had been complaints against Song over student performance and corporal punishment in his previous school, which led to him being deployed to Meixi Lake school. - The Straits Times/ANN
