By HIROHISA YAMASHITA/ Staff Writer
July 8, 2022 at 18:09 JST
Officials from the Nagoya city board of education hold a news conference in Nagoya on July 7. (Hirohisa Yamashita)
NAGOYA--An elementary school here failed to call an ambulance for a 10-year-old student who fractured his face after slipping in a classroom, according to the city’s board of education.
Nagoya city education board officials apologized at a news conference on July 7.
“The boy should have immediately been taken to a hospital,” one of the officials said.
The fifth-grade boy was carrying his friend on his back in a classroom during a break at around 1:10 p.m. on July 5, according to the education board. The boy then slipped and slammed his face against the floor.
He told his classroom teacher that he was seeing double. At the school nurse’s office he was taken to, the boy complained of pain in his left eye and threw up.
The nurse determined that he did not need to be rushed to the hospital because his eyes were not swelling or changing in color. The nurse put a cold compress on his eyes and asked his mother at around 1:30 p.m. to pick him up.
The mother suggested someone at the school take her son to a hospital, but the nurse insisted she come to the school to get him.
The school principal learned about the accident at the same time and told the boy to lie down and rest.
After his mother arrived at the school, the boy threw up again and complained of feeling sick. The mother called an ambulance at around 1:50 p.m. The boy was diagnosed as having fractured his orbital floor and underwent surgery.
His injury is not life-threatening, according to the education board. He is currently receiving treatment at the hospital and will require roughly three months to recover.
“The school failed to take the necessary precautions and did not carefully weigh the option (of taking the boy to a hospital),” an education board official said at the news conference.
The education board will issue a directive to all municipal schools in the city to make an appropriate response when students hit their heads hard.
The elementary school in question reportedly briefed the guardians of students on the matter in writing.
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