The father of the schoolgirl who suffered brain hemorrhaging after a fight with another schoolgirl spoke to the Record on 28 February, the day after his 16-year-old daughter had undergone brain surgery at the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Hospital.
The father told the Record that despite the doctors regarding the injury as extremely serious and labelling it an emergency, they had to wait from 9am until 1.50am the next day before she finally was operated on. The operation seemed to have been a success.
The father also contradicted what the mother of the other girl involved in the fight had said, claiming that in fact his daughter was the one being bullied and challenged to the fight.
He also denied her claim that it was “just a light punch on the chin”.
The father will be laying charges. He also expressed his dismay at Hoërskool Die Burger, saying that they have not contacted the family to ask about his daughter’s wellbeing and said that they were “only worried about keeping their name out of the newspapers”.
For the full story on the parents’ ordeal at the hospital and more, read next week’s edition of the Record.
Mother tells her version of schoolgirls fight — 26 February
On 26 February two schoolgirls from Hoërskool Die Burger allegedly were involved in a fight that led to one girl requiring brain surgery.
The mother (name known to the Record but is withheld for the sake of protecting the identity of the minor) of the girl who is accused of putting the other girl in hospital contacted the Record shortly after the article had appeared on the Roodepoort Record website and told a different version of what took place.
According to the mother, for the past two weeks her daughter had been bullied by the girl who now is in hospital. She even went as far as opening a case of bullying at the Sophiatown Police Station.
The mother alleges that on that fateful day her daughter refused to meet the other girl in a park to fight it out but was forced to go there. At the park she refuse again but then gave the other girl “only a light punch on the chin”, after which the other girl collapsed.
The latter had brain surgery at 3.15pm on 27 February.
Schoolgirl fight ends in one requiring brain surgery — 27 February
A female pupil of Hoërskool Die Burger allegedly was beaten up so badly in a fight with a fellow female pupil that she was taken to Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Hospital for emergency brain surgery on 27 February.
A source told the Record that on the afternoon of 26 February after school the two girls (either in Grade 10 or 11) were involved in a fight in a park that is “a block or two away from the school”.
At this stage it is unclear what the fight was about since the girl allegedly is so incapacitated due to her injuries that she has not been able to communicate the turn of events to her parents. She allegedly also has problems to control her bodily functions.
Headmaster of Hoërskool Die Burger, Basie Smit, did confirm to the Record that the incident took place but denied that the school had an indifferent attitude.
He said that the school was “dealing with the matter internally” and that they already have called in the one girl’s parents and are waiting for the injured girl’s parents also to come to the school.
At the time of receiving the information from the source and speaking to Smit (at approximately 11am) the Record could establish that the injured girl’s parents were with her at the hospital, waiting for her to go into theatre.
For the full story read next week’s edition of the Record.
