Pupil, 9, attempts suicideRichard Charan South Bureau
Friday, June 15th 2007
A nine-year-old girl who drank poison from a bottle while at school was in a stable condition last night at the Mt Hope Children's Hospital.
The grandmother with whom she lives was questioned by police earlier in the day.
The Education Ministry is working with police investigators on the case, said the ministry's communications specialist Mervyn Crichlow.
The girl is a standard two pupil of the Mammoral Roman Catholic Primary School, a rural village east of Chaguanas.
The incident is said to have happened at class on Wednesday.
Police intend speaking with the parents of the child, who shortly after drinking the weedicide, told friends what she had done before the lunch break.
Classmates reported the incident to the school's principal who called paramedics and police.
Crichlow said: "The student is alleged to have brought some liquid into the school and drank some of it. The principal contacted the EHS, the police, the school supervisor and the grandmother."
Crichlow said the reason for the girl's suicide attempt was unknown.
The incident was the latest in a number of suicidal behaviour by school children in the past year.
Last September, six pupils of the Princes Town Junior Secondary School were taken to hospital after inhaling an insecticide brought to school by a boy who police said planned to drink it.
A month later, a 16-year-old boy hanged himself from a cell at the Family Court in Port of Spain, and a 15-year-old drank poison after meeting her probation officer. She survived.
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Little girl with dark secrets...drinks poison in school
Richard Charan rcharan@trinidadexpress.com
Monday, June 18th 2007
The little girl who poisoned herself at school while her friends watched was a bright child with dark secrets, relatives and neighbours in her village said yesterday.
The nine-year-old walked a mile to school. Neighbours said the girl would be walked to and from school by an older brother holding a stick. She lives with her grandmother and 12-year-old brother, in the rotted room of a building used to dry cocoa.
Her mother left her behind when she was two years old, to start a new life outside the rural village of Mamoral No 2, 10 miles east of Chaguanas.
Her father is not known to villagers. The only money the family has comes from a public assistance grant.
The girl is a standard two pupil at a primary school.
The school's parent-teacher association president asked yesterday that the State's social services "intervene because this is a terrible, sad thing that has happened. And this girl and her family needs counselling and long-term help".
The girl, who many described as sad and reclusive, is a patient of the Mt Hope Paediatric Hospital. She was taken there last Wednesday afternoon by paramedics.
The girl was visited at hospital by teachers.
Yesterday, her grandmother said she was doing better.
The grandmother said the girl drank the poison because she was often beaten and tormented by bullies at her school.
She said the girl's brother would walk her to and from school to protect him her beatings.
Villagers said the girl was a victim of domestic abuse and was encouraged to take the poison.
Her classmates told their parents that the girl brought the weedicide to school in a vial, and mixed it with a soft drink.
According to a child who witnessed it "she laughed and told us she going to kill herself. I going to drink Gramoxone. She walked to the classroom door and and drank it."
The school's PTA president, said though the school's enrolment was small "no one knew the girl was was having problems. She always seemed friendly. This is troubling to us".
She added: "The girl never went to church or temple. she seldom left the village to go to cinema or mall shopping."
The girl is said to have run away from home in the past but was disciplined and taken back to the cocoa house, after her mother refused to take her in.
