10 year old Kentucky schoolboy, Seven Bridges commits suicide after relentless bullying at hands of classmates. Does one school have blood on their hands?
A ten year old Kentucky boy has committed suicide after relentless bullying as a result of having to use a colostomy bag according to reports.
Notice of Seven Bridges’ death came upon the boy’s mother returning from the grocery store Saturday morning only to find her fifth-grade son having hung himself at the family’s home in Louisville, WHAS reported.
‘I saw my son dead,’ told the boy’s mom, Tami Charles. ‘That’s something in my head.’
Charles said Seven struggled with bullying he encountered on the bus ride to Kerrick Elementary School, where he was taunted because of a bowel condition, WDRB reported.
The child was born with a medical defect that required him to undergo more than 26 surgeries and use a colostomy bag, his family said. Bullies reportedly often tormented him because of the smell from the condition.
Seven’s mom said the bullying became so severe that the family had planned to transfer schools next year.
‘We would talk to him about having new friends and a new start,’ Charles said. ‘He just had to get to the end of the year.’
Seven Bridges school-bullying: ‘They stood on the verbal message, the lip service of zero tolerance, but they did not deliver.’
The boy’s family said the school could’ve done more to prevent bullying in class.
‘We found that the school system had a lot of holes and a lot of inconsistencies with their policies about bullying,’ Charles told WLKY. ‘They stood on the verbal message, the lip service of zero tolerance, but they did not deliver.’
Charles said that Seven had been called the n-word and had been choked on a bus ride in September, and that there was “no referral, no incident report, no paperwork” even though her son had to go the hospital, WHAS11 reported.
School officials pledged to investigate the reports of bullying, according to WDRB.
‘This is something that is just crushing,’ spokesperson Renee Murphy said. ‘This is nothing we ever want to hear. We are all devastated by this.’
Reiterated the official, ‘The school community is hurting right now.’
Not immediately understood is what action, if any, the school had taken to rein in the bullying?
A GoFundMe page was created to help raise money for the 10-year-old’s funeral.
‘His death is an example of what can happen when we choose not to take the issue of bullying seriously,’ the page said.
