8th grader suffers 1st-degree burns after her hair is set on fire: 'I thought I was going to die'
A bully allegedly set a 13-year-old girl’s hair on fire as she waited for the bus near her Philadelphia school. The eighth grader suffered first-degree burns, was left with multiple bald spots, and said the incident was “traumatizing.”
“When it happened, I panicked real fast because I thought I was going to die, because it burned my hair so fast,” Nevaeh Robinson told CBS Philly.
A classmate set her hair ablaze with a lighter while other kids laughed, according to Nevaeh’s account. Though she was able to put the fire out by patting her hair with her hands, the student was burned and now wears a scarf to hide bald spots caused by the fire. Her mom, Tanya Robinson, told CBS Philly that she wants whoever set Nevaeh’s hair on fire expelled.
The bullying incident happened while the eighth-grader was waiting at a bus stop near her school. A fellow student walked up to Nevaeh and used a lighter to set her hair on fire as other students looked on in laughter.https://t.co/Y8PnqWddbd
— EBONY MAGAZINE (@EBONYMag) October 25, 2018
“We cannot comment on specific instances of school discipline; however, this type of violence is unacceptable. The school district did follow its policy and procedure on this matter,” a spokesperson for the Philadelphia School District said in a statement to Yahoo Lifestyle.
The police are reportedly investigating, as it did not happen on school grounds, and Yahoo Lifestyle has reached out to the Philadelphia Police Department for further comment.
Nevaeh has been bullied in the past, including one incident in which a classmate reportedly broke her thumb. October is Bullying Prevention Month, and at least 28 percent of American students in sixth to 12th grade experience bullying in some form, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
“This shouldn’t be swept under the rug,” Robinson told CBS Philly.
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