12-year-old Chrisland student dies during inter-house sports competition, school reacts

Mrs Blessing Adeniran, the mother of the 12-year-old Chrisland International School student, Opebi branch, who allegedly died during the school’s inter-house sports activities at Agege Stadium, has taken to social media to narrate how she found out her daughter, Whitney Adeniran, had died.

In the video on her Instagram page on Sunday, the tearful mother said that she was told her daughter slumped and had been rushed to the hospital.

Blessing said she immediately rushed to the hospital but had a hard time finding it because she was given the wrong address. However after she finally located where her daughter was, she said Whitney was already dead and her lips and tongue were black.

Narrating her ordeal, she said, “We drove out of the stadium to the gate, we asked the gatemen (for the hospital), they didn’t know. As we were driving around we were asking people where we can find Central Hospital but they all said they only knew Agege General Hospital. When we couldn’t locate the place we decided to go to Agege Central Mosque and on our way to the mosque, we saw the school bus packed, so we knew we were at the place.

“I jumped down from the car when we saw the school bus and rushed in. I saw the staff that went with her (Whitney) and I asked her ‘Madam where is my child, what happened, why did she faint’ she (the staff) said ‘I don’t know, she’s in there’. I went in there and I saw my daughter’s corpse, Desola didn’t say anything to me. I went in there and I met my daughter on her deathbed, she was already dead.

“She was drenched, soaked to the skin, water was dripping. I knelt down, I called on God, I shouted, I screamed. I felt her pulse, there was no pulse. My daughter was silent. I asked the doctor what happened to my daughter and he said from the look of things she suffered from cardiac arrest.”

No proper first aid

Continuing, she said, “How does a 12-year-old have a cardiac arrest? No pre-existing heart condition, no pre-existing medical condition. She was hale and hearty, she was not sick in any form. Even if she will die from cardiac arrest why should one arrest kill a healthy teenager? Let me state this, that by the time I got there, my daughter’s lips and tongue had already turned black.”

Blessing also revealed that her daughter was not taken to a hospital but an immunisation centre, adding that there was no proper first aid management.

She said, “My child was not taken to a hospital, she was taken to an immunisation centre but that is not even my pain. My pain is there was no proper first aid management, there was nothing that was done for her; she was brought to the hospital dead.

“Because when her medical report came in, it said dead on arrival. When my husband came he came in to pick his child to take her to another hospital, he came in and met her dead. He screamed, shouted, ‘Desola, daddy is here, stand up. What is happening to my child’. My husband knelt down crying begging the doctor ‘help me, this is my first child’.”

Michael Adeniran, Whitney’s father had taken to social media on Saturday night to demand a probe into the death of his daughter, calling on the Lagos State Government and the police to intervene in the matter, also demanding for Chrisland to explain what actually happened to his daughter.

Whitney’s father, Michael, also said his daughter had no health condition or sickness as at when the school bus picked her up for the event

His post on Facebook partly read, “I gave Chrisland school a healthy vibrant young girl what Chrisland returned to me is a dead child. My entire family is in deep sorrow but the school authority claimed they know nothing about my daughter’s death and all they know is that my daughter slumped and died.

“Since we started asking this question. The school has been asking us to back down from the autopsy and I know they know their way into the system. I am calling on the pathology department of @lasuth to please be honest with their result. Lagos State government, Nigerian Government, please intervene.”

Adeniran further said the school had no ambulance or paramedics at the event, except for a nurse he described as a “quack,” who he said later confessed that the child died at the stadium.

Police confirm incident

The Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer, Benjamin Hundeyin, who confirmed the incident to our correspondent on Sunday morning, said the matter was reported to the police immediately after the incident occurred.

He said, “Yes the case has been reported to the police. It was reported immediately the incident happened on Thursday.

“The case is presently at the State Criminal Investigation Department and an autopsy is going to be carried out to know the circumstances that led to her death. That’s all the update I have for now.”

 

School React

The management of Chrisland schools has explained the incident that led to the death of one of their students, Whitney Adeniran, who died during the school’s inter-house sports activities at Agege Stadium, Lagos State, on Thursday.

Reacting to the call for justice for the deceased, Chrisland released a press statement on Sunday and a copy was made available to our correspondent.

The statement read, “The management and staff of Chrisland Schools Limited, with a deep sense of loss, announce the death of our precious student, Whitney Adeniran; whose painful exit occurred on Thursday, February 9th, 2023.