Student's fingertips severed after teacher 'slammed classroom door on her hand'
A family is suing after a teacher allegedly slammed a classroom door onto a student’s hand so hard that three of her fingertips were severed.
According to the lawsuit, obtained by the Capital Gazette, a student at MacArthur Middle School in the US state of Maryland was airlifted to the hospital in early October 2017 after her French teacher, Steven Akers, closed the door on her hand.
The student, who is a minor, allegedly got up to ask Mr Akers a question when she placed her left hand on “the door jam of the class door frame”.
The teacher was then attempting to get the class’ attention and “slammed the door directly on (the student’s) fingers, namely her pointer, middle and ring fingers, severing the tips of all three fingers”.
The school’s principal called 911 before the student was brought to Union Memorial Hospital, where she got surgery on her fingers.
Her father, Javier Benitez, and the family’s lawyer, Stephen Campen, claim the incident has left the student with significant deformities to her middle and ring fingers.
“She was in the process of trying to teach herself how to play the piano but has had to discontinue that pursuit,” Mr Campen wrote in the lawsuit.
Recent court documents reveal the student has suffered permanent injuries and nerve damage despite having gotten the surgery, US news outlet WRC reported.
The case of negligence comes from the teacher not having checked if a student was in the path of the door.
Mr Benitez is seeking $75,000 from the Anne Arundel County school board in Maryland.
And although the school did not dispute the incident happened or resulted in the student needing surgery, according to the Capital Gazette, the district claims the medical costs only added up to US$1459 (AU$2054) and the student’s physician called her surgical recovery “unremarkable”.
A spokesperson for the Anne Arundel County School District told Yahoo he could not comment on pending litigation, but said Mr Akers resigned from his position as a teacher in February 2018.
