The Lagos State Police Command has said the autopsy to unravel the circumstances surrounding the death of a pupil of Chrisland International School, Whitney Adeniran, has been done.
The state Police Public Relations Officer, SP Benjamin Hundeyin, who confirmed the development to our correspondent on Monday, however, said the result of the autopsy was yet to be out simply because the toxicology report on the case was still being awaited.
“The autopsy for the Chrisland pupil has been done but the result is not out. We are waiting for a toxicology report,” Hundeyin said.
PUNCH Metro had reported that the Lagos State Government shut the school as an investigation commenced to ascertain Whitney’s cause of death during the inter-house sports organised by the school at the Agege Stadium, in the Agege area of the state.
While the school, eyewitnesses and medical doctor hinted that Whitney slumped and died of cardiac arrest, the parents of the 12-year-old pupil, particularly her father, Michael, while demanding justice, said his daughter died of suspected electrocution.
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.”
On her part, Whitney’s bereaved mother, Blessing, who said she was at the Agege Stadium to support her daughter during the sporting activities, explained that she was trying to ascertain Whitney’s whereabouts when a pupil of the school informed her that she slumped and was rushed to hospital for treatment.
Blessing, however, noted that her daughter was not taken to a hospital but an immunisation centre, adding that when she rushed down to the centre, she found her daughter’s corpse with her lips and tongue black.
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 that by the time I got there, my daughter’s lips and tongue had already turned black.
“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 in to pick up 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’.”
