10-year-old boy stabbed in eye with pencil at school

A Montreal family is accusing their child’s school of doing little to stop a bullying problem that ended with their son stabbed in the eye with a pencil last month.

The incident happened at the François-La Bernarde school in Pointe-aux-Trembles, after young Alexandro Baiamonte and the bully had an altercation just off school grounds during the lunch hour on April 22.

“My son was coming out of the school, and he was waiting for this kid.” his father, Danny Baiamonte, told CTV Montreal. “And as soon as the kid came out, apparently, he came with two pencils, and he said, ‘come, come and fight me now.’ Because two days ago they had fought together, and I guess he didn’t take the defeat.”

This time, though, the boy came with his little brother, and both of them brandished pencils. During the encounter that followed, Alexandro managed to get hold of one of them.

The other pencil was shoved into his right eye, which required a trip to the emergency room, where he was operated on within hours to have the lead fragments removed from the eye.

The boy now has to wear an eyepatch, and will have to return to a doctor in a couple of weeks to make sure his retina was not detached.

The pencil tip went through the white of his eye, and not the centre, which will allow him to retain the sight in that eye. But Baiamonte says the best-case scenario for Alexandro is that he’ll carry a scar for the rest of his life.

The Commission scolaire de la Pointe-de-l’Île, the school board that École François-La-Bernarde belongs to, said the boy who stabbed Alex was suspended.

For Baiamonte, the suspension doesn’t get at the root cause of the issue.

“The problem is the parents. It’s not even the kids, the kids are innocent. What the parents say or do at home, the kids do.”

Baiamonte and Follano are adamant that more supervision at school and even cameras are necessary to prevent something like what happened to Alex from happening again.

For now, doctors have said that Alex could go back to school this week. But both he and his parents say it may take him a little longer than that.

“He’s supposed to go back but he’s not feeling well. His eye is still hurting, he says he sees blurry.” Baiamonte said.

“I’m feeling nervous,” Alex said.

Agencies/Canadajournal