Special needs student dies after teacher makes him wear ‘homemade’ neck brace
posted at 12:44 pm on March 5, 2012 by Howard Portnoy
An 18-year-old Atlanta youth is dead because he refused to face forward in class. Actually, the problem wasn’t so much that Aaron Hatcher refused to look at his teacher but rather that he was unable. He suffered both muscular dystrophy and cerebral palsy and was unable to control the direction of gaze, the Daily Mail reports.
Aaron was also unable to speak or walk, but that didn’t prevent his teacher at Roswell High School from insisting he follow a rigid code of conduct. She jerry-rigged a neck brace that would force him to “pay attention” in school. Unfortunately, the contraption had the unintended consequence of obstructing Aaron’s breathing and ultimately—his family is now arguing—contributed to his death last year.
Aaron’s family has filed a $10.5 million lawsuit against the school. Their attorney, Trey Sauls, told WSBTV.com:
[The teacher] fastened this neck brace not for any medical reason, but to force his neck in a position to look at her.
In turning his head in this position, it restricted his airway. In essence, it stopped him from breathing.
Ronald Hatcher, Aaron’s father, claims he notified school officials about the use of the unapproved neck brace but insists the teacher refused to relent. “I went to the doctor and got a letter to tell them to stop this,” he told the Atlanta Journal Constitution. “They would not listen to me. He would have to sit a certain way in order for him to breathe. Several times he would go to the hospital from school code blue.”
According to court documents, it was following one such emergency room visit on March 19 that Aaron died at home.
The lawsuit, which names 24 defendants including the school district, is not limited to the abuse that allegedly resulted in the teen’s death or to staff at Roswell High School. The suit also names defendants at Hopewell Middle School, where Aaron was a student from 2005 to 2007. One teacher in particular, Melanie Pickens, has been charged with assault and battery, false imprisonment, and intentionally inflicting emotional distress. Court records allege that Pickens dumped Aaron out of his wheelchair and passed gas in his face.
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Criminal charges. At the very least, unauthorized practice of medicine, if not outright manslaughter.
rbj on March 5, 2012 at 12:58 PM
Oh Dear God! I hope if this indeed true with all the facts, the parents get every penny they are asking for.
L
letget on March 5, 2012 at 1:00 PM
What on earth were the parents thinking, sending him back to that school? The FIRST after school emergency room visit was ample reason to pull him out of that school, much less “Several times…”
I’m not defending the school – what the teacher and school did was entirely wrong – but the parents are culpable here too.
Laura Curtis on March 5, 2012 at 1:15 PM
who cares? he was only a potential person, not an actual person. no actual people died, no harm was done. move along, nothing to see here.
Sachiko on March 5, 2012 at 1:17 PM
This sounds absolutely terrible, but I would want to hear the other side before assuming the media is giving all the objective facts.
redeye on March 5, 2012 at 1:20 PM
Sarc tag is your friend.
gryphon202 on March 5, 2012 at 1:24 PM
“Ronald Hatcher, Aaron’s father, claims he notified school officials about the use of the unapproved neck brace but insists the teacher refused to relent. “I went to the doctor and got a letter to tell them to stop this,” he told the Atlanta Journal Constitution. “They would not listen to me. He would have to sit a certain way in order for him to breathe. Several times he would go to the hospital from school code blue.”
And you left him in that school? Seriously?
samazf on March 5, 2012 at 1:30 PM
Agree – give them everything! Just run right out to the free money tree and pick enough to pay all the damages.
Larr
Larr on March 5, 2012 at 1:31 PM
/////////// here are some sarc tags for my very disturbing previous comment. XD
but seriously, some on the left treat the unborn and the elderly as not “actual people.” (quoting from that article in that science journal) special needs people- of all ages- are next!!
Sachiko on March 5, 2012 at 1:32 PM
You may get counterfire for this, but I agree that it’s the important question. What the teacher did is inexcusable, but one of the big problems here is defining special-needs children as something there should be public one-size-fits-all “solutions” for. As if parents can’t be expected to bear the burden of having their children’s best interests at heart.
J.E. Dyer on March 5, 2012 at 1:52 PM
The parents’ decision to leave Aaron in the school probably depended on what they were told by the administrators after the first incident with the neck brace (“Don’t worry, won’t happen again” or something similar?), the alternative placements available within the school district and/or approved by the school board and the district’s special ed department, and what supervision (if any) over the school district’s special ed program was provided by Georgia’s state agencies responsible for providing services to clients with special needs. It is easy to say “Why did the parents leave the child in this school” but very much harder to get the services for your child which the school district and the state are legally obliged to provide. I don’t know anything about the arrangements in Georgia, but as the parent of a special needs child in NJ I can say that the process can be very complicated and difficult to understand, much less navigate – and the parents’ decision to leave the child in the school does not in any way relieve the board/district/teachers/special ed professionals from their obligations toward the child.
Upstreamer on March 5, 2012 at 2:49 PM
Exactly. Without knowing more, there may not have been any good alternative for the parents. I still want criminal charges against the school officials. They were told by a doctor to stop doing what they were doing and ignored it. That’s not mere negligence.
rbj on March 5, 2012 at 2:50 PM
I am having a difficult time believing this story as it is written. I am trying to picture a teacher seeing a student with cerebral palsy and muscular dystrophy and claiming the student needs to look in a certain direction. And a homemade neck brace? It cannot be true. I will be interested in seeing what actually happened. If what is alleged is true, man, that teacher should not be in the classroom, let alone out of jail.
duggersd on March 5, 2012 at 3:42 PM
Upstreamer on March 5, 2012 at 2:49 PM
Again, what the teacher and school did was entirely wrong. However, the father acknowledged in writing that he felt his son’s life was at risk. Yet he kept sending him back.
It’s pretty hard for me to imagine what services the special ed program was providing that made it worthwhile to keep sending his son back to a teacher he himself identified as being dangerous and abusive. I’m not trying to be a jerk, coming down on the parents, but I’m honestly perplexed why they kept sending him back. While the teacher and school district are obviously guilty, the parents also could have stopped it anytime. If the father hadn’t written “if you don’t stop this, he’s going to die,” I would have assumed that the parents simply didn’t know the full extent of what was going on. But clearly they DID know. And yet continued to put their helpless son in the hands of people they knew were abusing him. The only victim in this story is the boy himself; certainly not the parents.
Laura Curtis on March 5, 2012 at 3:49 PM
Hitler didn’t like un-perfect humans either.
BobMbx on March 5, 2012 at 4:07 PM
This is a text-book case of “government knows best” as experienced by a family who apparently deeply believe the leftist bullshit.
Now their son is dead, and the spell is broken. Now they want money from us.
BobMbx on March 5, 2012 at 4:10 PM
My guess is that their son required a boatload of medical care and that they had no way to afford private/charter school in addition, and that they needed to send him to public school in order to be able to work to afford his care.
I do understand the questions of how the parents could knowingly return him to a situation where he was being abused (that’s what this is, IMO– repeated abuse)… but given how many stories come out daily about teachers raping kids, assaults, bullying, etc. in addition to pro-Islam/pro-socialism propaganda being at the forefront of the lesson plans, I think all parents who send their kids to public school could be questioned as to why they trust the system.
No one can trust the public school system, when it comes down to it. There are good teachers and I’d wager even some good schools, but they’re few and far between, and the system is designed to not just not encourage those types, but to discourage excellence and actively reward the bad ones.
It’s not just special needs children who should be considered too fragile and important to be sent to a “one size fits all” school.
RachDubya on March 5, 2012 at 5:07 PM
Armorica on March 5, 2012 at 6:00 PM
There has to be more than what is in this story to this story. If this child was subject to abuse for 7+ years, including the incident where he was knocked from his wheelchair, etc (so disgusting) the parents have a large part of the responsibility for allowing these incidents to happen. It’s one thing to be overwhelmed, it’s another to be negligent.
jclittlep on March 5, 2012 at 6:43 PM
Yes, the school was required by law to provide education for this child and it is unconscionable how he was treated. No doubt they will be well compensated for all that occurred. I must, however, address the other side of this. During my daughter’s senior year of high school she was diagnosed with a life threatening Latex allergy which is triggered by airborne latex particles. Every time a student had a birthday (and with 1200 students in the school, that was pretty much daily) a bouquet of latex balloons would appear in the hallways, classrooms, cafeteria, etc. Needless to say, attending school became akin to a daily stroll down the gauntlet. We attempted to work with the school and they instituted a “no balloons” rule; my daughter had permission to get up and leave her classroom immediately if balloons were there. You get the picture. We limped along with this program until December 2010 when one day a bouquet of balloons were brought into her physics class. She immediately went to the office (the plan) and then over to the health room. The principal, in all her educated wisdom, marched upstairs, got the offending balloons and what did she do? She took them to her office and closed the door. The ventilation system took over from there. My daughter, who was across the hall in the health room, went into anaphylactic shock. Her epipen was administered, 9-1-1 was called and nearly $1000 in medical bills later, she was able to come home. In our meeting with the principal I was only interested in one thing from the school: that my daughter got the credits she needed without having to set foot in the school AND that come June she had her diploma. Would my daughter have preferred to complete school in the classroom? Absolutely. But sometimes you have take extraordinary measures to protect your child. Attend school or die? Is there really any choice?
MomInLatteland on March 5, 2012 at 7:24 PM
Let me guess: This “teacher” is protected by a union. And we should expect to see the union picketing outside the court bulding.
njcommuter on March 6, 2012 at 12:45 AM
I feel for the 18-year-old. To be locked in a body that doesn’t allow you to defend yourself, and shoved off to adults who couldn’t be trusted with your care — that’s a terrifying scenario that ended in death.
The practice of force-fitting “special needs” children in a mainstream school brings out the worst possibilitys. The adults weren’t selected for the task, and the other kids might become resentful at having do without for the one kid.
Why must we set up scenarios that make the worst possible outcome more likely? Liberalism.
Feedie on March 6, 2012 at 5:34 AM
I agree with those who wonder why in hell his parents continued to send him back to that school to be abused. They have some responsibility in this matter, too. If it had been my kid, I would have yanked him out at the first sign of trouble and dared them to say anything.
Mean Granny on March 6, 2012 at 10:16 AM
I once subbed in a school system that previously had a separate building for special needs kids, including whirlpool baths believe it or not, and specially trained teachers to care for them. That was, somehow, deemed “unfair” and the kids were mainstreamed into school environments totally unsuitable for their safety and development.
I saw the kind of flak they took from the “normal” students, and you can bet there is nothing more cruel than a gang of adolescents with a defenceless target.
There are some students who can benefit from having a broader environment and a “modified” mainstream approach, but most school systems seem to believe there are only two positions on the light switch: everybody separate or everybody together; that there can be a “middle case” seems totally unfathomable for some reason, and don’t even try to suggest a variable rheostat solution.
AesopFan on March 6, 2012 at 7:55 PM