The 14-year-old youth suffered a significant facial injury. (Submitted/ Carrie Hoey)

By Nigel Maxwell

Violent Incident

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Editor’s note: this story was updated at 7:30p.m. to include a statement from the other boy’s family.

A Prince Albert mother is calling for answers after her son was violently assaulted at school.

Just days before his grade 8 farewell celebration at Queen Mary, the 14-year was strangled from behind and then upon losing consciousness dropped to the ground. Carrrie Hoey, who also believes her son was further struck, told paNOW she was called to the school and found her son sitting in a chair and there was blood dripping down his face.

“When he started talking about losing consciousness I was like why wasn’t this kid taken to the hospital? Why wasn’t an ambulance called and I walked out with my kid,” she asked.

School officials informed Hoey it was her son who instigated the incident; to which she then asked where then was the other blood-covered kid.

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In the days that followed, the school did follow up and checked on Hoey’s son, though she has filed a police report. But as of Friday, there’s been no follow-up from investigators and the school won’t let her see the security cam footage.

“I’ve had zero answers and it’s disgusting,” she said.

Hoey believes the whole situation should never have been allowed to get to the point it did, but adds staff should be better trained to deal with kids who have been injured.

“People send their kids to school and expect them to come home after; not have to go pick them up when they should have been rushed to the hospital in an ambulance.”

While the teen’s physical injuries are healing, his mental scars have not and Hoey noted that with the exception of the farewell celebration he has not returned to school.

“One of the parents said were you in a fight? I was like it was much worse than that,” Hoey said.

Due to privacy concerns and the age of the youths involved, the school division is restricted in what it can say publicly about the incident.

Director of Education Robert Bratvold informed paNOW they were aware of the situation, have been working with the families involved, and there is an ongoing investigation.

Meanwhile the other’s boy’s family contacted paNOW and provided the following statement:

“On behalf of the other party we would like to extend our sincere apologies. Our family has been dealing with this all week. We have been in contact with the school, police, children’s advocate along with social services. We are taking the necessary steps to deal with this situation. When we contacted the school we were told the parents of the other youth was not in contact with the school. We requested a meeting and mediation to deal with this matter. Our child is very regretful of the whole situation. The youth that was assaulted had verbally assaulted our child and continued until the altercation occurred. He has been very upset since the whole occurrence and again is very remorseful. We want to apologize to the family, however the school told us the parent had no contact with the school so we had no way to set this up. We since received threats and my child is now fearful for his safety as are we. We will continue to work with the necessary authorities until this is resolved. Furthermore We are deeply concerned about the way our son has been portrayed and the handling of the situation.”

nigel.maxwell@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @nigelmaxwell