A coroner has ruled that a 12-year-old student of Dowen College, Lekki, Lagos, Sylvester oromoni (Jnr.) who died under controversial circumstances suffered “avoidable excruciating pain” due to parental and medical negligence, which led to his avoidable demise.
The magistrate, Mikhail Kadiri revealed this while delivering his findings which lasted for more than six hours at the magistrate court in Ikeja on Monday
The 12-year-year-old died on 30 November 2021, after allegedly being attacked by some senior students for refusing to join a cult.
After his death, the Lagos State government shut the school and set up a coroner’s inquest to investigate the circumstances of his death. The inquest began in January 2022.
The judgement
Over 30 witnesses testified in the coroner’s inquest.
“Based on the foregoing, it is clear that the deceased’s health deteriorated in PW 3’s (doctor) care. “PW 3, did not take proper care of the deceased, PW 3, completely abandoned the deceased for a period of more than 32 hours.
“The deceased’s death was avoidable one but for the negligence of the parents and PW 3, they didn’t
take him to the hospital until the day he died on November 30, 2021.
“The deceased went through avoidable and excruciating pain and made to suffer needlessly.”
According to the autopsy results, his “heath was caused by septicaemia (a life-threatening health condition caused by a patient’s body’s response to an infection), following infections of the lungs and kidneys arising from the ankle wound,” the autopsy read in parts.
“No evidence of blunt force trauma in this body. The findings in the oesophagus and stomach are not compatible with chemical intoxication. Death, in this case, is natural.”
Sunday Soyemi, who led the Lagos procedure has testified that the boy would have survived the sepsis if treated with “massive doses of intravenous antibiotic, intravenous fluid and blood transfusion.”
From the evidence, the deceased was said to have sustained an injury on his ankle between November 20 and 21, following first aid treatment, the school contacted his parents to come and pick him up for further treatment.
A guardian was sent to the school who took him for an X-ray, but no fracture was detected. But, he wasn’t taken to a hospital for care in Lagos until days later when he was moved to his base in warri, and treated at home by the family doctor, Henry Aghogho.
The corner exonerated the school of negligence and the five senior students accused of bullying the deceased and administering a poisonous substance on him.
“The alleged suspects played no part in Sylvester’s death, but were victims of their past misdeeds. They were falsely accused, no staff of Dowen College played any role in the death,” he said.
The coroner recommended that parents should not take their children’s health with levity and called for proper psychological evaluation for the five students suspected to have bullied the deceased.
