A Waipahu Intermediate School seventh-grader who was critically injured in an altercation with another student Thursday was released from the Queen’s Medical Center on Friday.
The boy’s parents called the school to report he was out of the hospital, school Principal Randell Dunn said.
The boy was hospitalized Thursday at about noon after he sustained a head injury when another boy pushed him and he fell, Dunn said.
The boys had been taunting each other for several days, the principal said. When the situation became heated at the end of lunch break Thursday, "one wanted to pursue it, but the other one didn’t want to fight," Dunn said. "One went walking out the class, and the other one followed him and pushed him."
The boy fell and hit his head, either on a metal railing or on the ground, he said.
There was no fight, Dunn said.
The boy who allegedly pushed the victim has been suspended. It was not clear whether charges are being pursued against the suspect, although police opened a second-degree assault investigation.
"He was scared, really, really scared," Dunn said of the suspended boy. "He’s not one that usually gets into trouble, but the anger got the best of him. He knew what he did was wrong."
The principal led an assembly Friday for the school’s approximately 1,250 seventh- and eighth-graders.
Dunn said he wanted to stress to the students, and have a message sent back to the parents, that the confrontation was not a fight and that violence is not prevalent at the school.
Students were also reminded of the lessons they learned earlier this year from Rachel’s Challenge, a nonprofit program that teaches students to act civilly with each other and to turn away from school violence and bullying.
The program is named after Rachel Scott, one of the students killed during the Columbine High School shootings in Colorado in 1999. Family and friends said Scott had a reputation for standing up against unfair treatment and urging people to be kind and tolerant.
Forgiveness was another theme of Friday’s assembly, Dunn said. He urged students not to be hostile or to seek retribution against the boy who allegedly pushed the victim.
