School officials in Florida’s Volusia County School are insisting that a school nurse was perfectly correct in refusing to give a boy his inhaler during an asthma attack because a medical release form was not signed by a parent. By the time the mother arrived at the school, her son was passed out on the floor. She says that the nurse watched as her son, Michael Rudi, 17, collapsed.
The school dean found the inhaler in its original packaging with the student’s name and directions for its use. He seized the inhaler because of the absence of a form. When the boy began to have trouble breathing the mother was called to come into school. It is not clear why, if they could reach the mother, they could not get telephonic approval. More importantly, with the boy having breathing problems, the school insisted that it was still more important to get a form signed than help the child. Rudi is quoted as saying “[a]s soon as we opened up the door, we saw my son collapsing against the wall on the floor of the nurse’s office while she was standing in the window of the locked door looking down at my son, who was in full-blown asthma attack.”
Faced with this horrific situation, the Director of Student Health Services, Cheryl Selesky, still insists it was the parents’ fault for not being sure a new signed form was on file this year. There may have been a failure in supplying such a form, but that pales in comparison to the callous and irresponsible attitude to this teenager who was in obvious medical need. The school was previously made aware of the boy’s medical condition and yet stood there with an inhaler and an unsigned form in hand . . . but concluded the form was the more pressing matter.
It is also not clear why 911 was not called. The parents have filed child endangerment charges against the nurse. They also may want to consider a civil lawsuit against the school. Since the school appears primarily motivated by legal rather than medical considerations, a torts action may serve to concentrate the mind of officials.
Source: Orlando
Agree with Elaine. I have a child that might have needed medical assistance at school. I always had the forms signed and was in contact with the nurse. Most of the school nurses that I have dealt with have been very responsible. The doctor also gave me a form to take to the school with the proper instructions. I wanted to avoid having 911 called.
I blame lawyers ! Awful people 🙂
But seriously, Shirley…
If you have a society in which (some) lawyers will take up cases on behalf of the deranged and the opportunistic chancers, and bureaucratic courts entertain those claims – you’re going to end up with situations like this.
Situations like this happen where the people don’t have faith that justice will prevail if someone sues their asses because they haven’t covered those asses by sticking absolutely to the rules.
Woosty:
we vote in the jackasses who pass these laws. We want to be protected from ourselves or at least enough of us do.
When I was in high school, I am pretty sure I had friends who carried their inhaler with them. And you could bring an aspirin from home to take at lunch if you needed it, you didnt need to go through the school nurse.
We are less free now than we were 30 years ago and even less free than we were 60 years ago. The arc of freedom is not going the right way. And yet we continually vote for creeps, criminals and jackasses.
Why?
From the article:
“Selesky said the district is looking into whether proper procedures were followed by the school, and while nurses can’t give medications without the proper authorization, it is district policy to call 911 when a student cannot breath[e].”
*****
The school was definitely at fault for not calling 911.
Gene H. I disagree, you say “Plain old irresponsible behavior by a person in a position of power over a child.”…..but that rationality of behaviour will fnd it more and more difficult to express as the level of fear increases because of imposed and illegal conditions of economic disparity. And fear of bullying slapdown lawsuits based in irrational exercises of legal ‘dominion’.
It’s biology. There are limits. Constantly looking for people to turn into ‘negative examples’ by the legal community(at thier own enrichment) has made this country a dangerous place to live….not for the thugs and criminals who love environments like this, but for the very souls it says it exists to protect.
“The blame is on all of us for wanting to be taken care of and not taking responsibility for our own lives.” Bron
———————————————-
no it is not. I agree with much of what you said but the majority of people , I believe, do NOT think this way. The majority of people are more than happy to do their part. Most are not ABLE to continually be held to impossible and inescapable imposed standards that are ultimately futile to a decent livelihood, responsible and equal exchange, ethical and fair contribution to a society. Standards imposed by those who feel no need to follow them. Standards imposed to make a buck, not a socially responsible, safe and thriving community. Florida is on lockdown.
Bron,
Your dogma is showing again. This isn’t about “too many laws”. This case is about reckless endangerment and callous stupidity. Plain old irresponsible behavior by a person in a position of power over a child.
And what mespo said.
On a broader scale the same is being done to the lungs of the Earth, as government watches it die.
We seem to recoil at one individual case, but accept it when it is an en mass application impacting billions, i.e., a loss of the concept of scale.
Both are wrong.
there are a lot of hungry lawyers in Florida. Lots of them are not too bright, hardly tolerant, and they like money more than people, truth, law or reason. They have created a cesspool of fear and chased every competent intelligent public minded soul right out of this state. Point a finger, make a buck!!!!!!!
what do you expect people to do, we pass all of these ridiculous laws and take people to court at the drop of a hat. We are damned if we do and damned if we dont.
Small minds think this stuff up, we regulate this and we regulate that to fix what we regulated that didnt work. It is a never ending cycle/circle. Pretty soon everything will be illegal and we will be a nation of criminals.
Had the nurse given the boy the inhaler and he died, she would be culpable because the form wasnt signed. She was in a no win situation and so was the principal. They should have called 911 but there are probably rules about that as well.
It is not the nurse and the principal who are at fault, it is the nanny state and the politicians who think this crap up based on prodding from stupid people in their districts who want life to be fair, to be perfect, to be a rose garden free from burden or strife. It is because some people dont understand that life isnt fair and government cannot make it fair because none of us are born with equal capabilities.
The blame is on all of us for wanting to be taken care of and not taking responsibility for our own lives. For expecting others to look out for us in our daily life, for thinking government is all knowing and all caring and for thinking the same of politicians.
Folks
Knowing there is not much I can do about this situation, I did at least write up the following letter which I am sending out via certified mail when our post office opens this morning:
Office of the Florida State Attorney
Seventh Judicial Circuit
101 N Alabama Avenue
4th Floor
Deland, FL 32724
Greetings:
I have read with great dismay the events taking place in your jurisdiction with regard to the situation you surely have read in the news media where in my view a nurse recklessly endangered the life of a seventeen year old student at Volusia High School by refusing him a rescue inhaler during which time he nearly succumbed to an asthma attack.
I ask as a citizen that your office investigate this reckless act and if the events are as they are proffered to be in the media that it seems fitting and warranted that criminal charges be filed for at least Child Neglect (Florida Statute 827.03 (3) (a) (2) (c)
From what I read I can not see any reasonable defense to these actions and I hope that it will not occur again.
Respectfully yours
Darren Smith
May 24, 2012
Run — do not walk — out of that crazy state.
Our school system sent out forms at the beginning of each school year. Parents had to include names and telephone numbers of people to be contacted in case of emergency as well as other important information on the forms. Parents had to sign the forms. Teachers and the school nurse followed up when parents didn’t return the forms to school. The school nurse in Florida should have made sure that she had signed permission from a parent to give that child his inhaler. Otherwise, what’s the point of having the inhaler at school? I’d also have to question why the parents hadn’t signed a medical release form.
Unbelievable story. Even for Florida! As someone with asthma, I am appalled at the complete lack of common sense and professionalism. This child could have died. This nurse and school official need to work in a different profession. Not even calling 911? Idiots.
There was a book written many years ago titled, “The Death of Common Sense”, and we’re reminded of that all too often these days. That and a lot of moral cowardice.
I’d have a hard time restraining myself from physically confronting these imbeciles had this happened to my son. UFB
Being OT with flying:
I wonder when the seat in front of you wiil be equipped to dispense a plastic bag, which you fill from a spigot.
A similar one if you want a beverage.
It’ll be called BYOS service. ?????
BRING YOUR OWN STRAW.
Oh, you have it in the 600+ passengers flights to Australia. Nice is it? I’ll bet. Oskuld airlines. Yes, they are alsways modern.
On an flight in America, visiting after some years away,
I was told that I could not receive a headache tablet from the stewardess. That it was forbidden. I assumed that this was due to avoidance of responsibility of medical consequences. I wondered how they could sell alcoholic beverages without hinder.
Now we know by this young student’s example that tort America has gone too far. Or are you just salivating at the opportunities. We know then your speciality. And where did the latin phrase IN LOCO PARENTIS disappear from practice?
Motto: “Don’t breathe on me. I’ll sue!”
Are your hidden chains chafing America?
And I remember the golden days of flying from NYC to SF, propellar driven, one class=First Class, all could be VIP for the flight. On this flight the aft was not a den for the underclass, but a lounge furnished for drink and mingle, small but oh, so nice.
I could read the entirety of the OED and not find words to sufficiently describe the dismay and outrage I felt when reading this article. The nurse is lucky I wasn’t called to the scene because I would have arrested her for reckless endangerment and the principal if he was present during the event for his failure to call emergency services. The actions of the school and the nurse were completely and totally unacceptable and in my opinion criminal. If the child had died, I am certain there would be Probable Cause to arrest for Manslaughter.
Someone should file a complaint to the state board of health there. If she is actually licensed, I expect she won’t be later.
I read a few years ago that a child who witnessed another friend who also had asthma have an attack at school and was suspended and labeled a drug dealer because the former gave the patient a puff of their rescue inhaler. I also read that an English Language School in Quebec prohibited a blind man from bringing her service dog to the school because the dog’s commands were in French. This case today is worse by a longshot but seems to be endemic to a worrying degree.
What a bunch of drones. Useless bureaucratic drones. They could have killed this child because of their asinine adherence to their own arbitrary rules. THE PIECE OF PAPER WAS WORTH MORE THAN A LIFE. Then they blame the parents for not signing a piece of paper. Again, the OED isn’t thick enough.
I wish there was something I could do about this. I’m pretty angry now.
Sadly, because of the society we live in, a lot of common sense has been squeezed out of our public institutions. School particularly have been the target of multiple law suits, often for doing AND not doing something. Many teachers and administrators have tried to protect themselves through iron clad policies with no room for deviating.
The solution to this particular situation is obvious to us after the fact but the conditions that led to it are unlikely to change.
It’s Florida, after all.
Res ipsa loquitur.