Dial 911 in case of emergency.

This is just the most ridiculous story. Did the nurse really feel that she had to speak to a principal in order to decide whether or not to call 911 for this child? What I want to know is who is this nurse? What school did she go to? Why did she think that she needed the principals permission? Not only should she and the principal be fired but they should face criminal charges. What they did was criminal. She should of used better judgement. She should of made the 911 call regardless of the principals rules. There was an emergency going on. She neglected the needs of a patient. The family should also get more than the 2 million dollars they are suing for. My condolences go out to the Martinez family.

New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com

911 breach in son death enrages dad BY JOSE MARTINEZ
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Tuesday, January 9th, 2007
The father of an 11-year-old boy who died following an asthma attack at a Brooklyn school was disgusted to learn yesterday that all city schools are supposed to follow a rule that could have helped save his son's life.
Shawn Martinez sighed when told that in case of a medical emergency, school staffers are required to call 911 before trying to locate a principal.
As reported in the Daily News, Martinez has filed a $2 million lawsuit against the city, two nurses and their employer, alleging that nurses at Public School 20 in Clinton Hill didn't call 911 because they could not find the principal while his son, Shawn, suffered an asthma attack in February 2003.
"How can you just do the exact opposite of what you're supposed to do?" Martinez said.
According to Chancellor's Regulation A-412, school staffers must call 911 in a medical emergency and then find a principal, who should go to the scene with a "trained health professional."
"The principal should be contacted after 911 has been called, not the other way around," said David Cantor, a spokesman for the Education Department.
In sworn testimony, two nurses said they were barred from calling 911 without first alerting the principal, who is not identified by name in court papers.
According to Education Department records, the principal in 2003 was Brenda Williams-Jackson. A woman of the same name now heads an elementary school in Nassau County but did not return calls yesterday.
"I can understand the [Education Department] waking up now and going, 'That's an insane policy,'" said the family's attorney, David Dean, of the law firm Sullivan Papain. "But we know what the policy was at this school in February of 2003."
An official with the city's Law Department said the school "acted appropriately" in treating the ailing boy.
"We are confident that when all the facts come out, they will demonstrate that the city and the Department of Education acted appropriately," said Mark Palomino, chief of the agency's special litigation unit.
Shawn's mother, Gabrielle Walton, called 911 after picking the boy up from school and trying to treat him at home.
"He told me that he was going to die and he couldn't breathe," Walton said in a deposition. "I said, 'Shawnie, please don't die on me.'"
The boy was pronounced dead at St. Mary's Hospital just over two hours after he set foot in the school clinic.
"I just really, really, really do not want this to happen to anyone else," said Shawn Martinez. "I really would not wish this on anyone."
With Nicole Bode

Asthma is a leading cause of hospitalization for New York City childrenup to age 14.
Other facts:
17% of New York City children - about 300,000 kids - have asthma.
30% of kids in the South Bronx and central Brooklyn have asthma.
700,000 adults in the city have asthma.
Asthma is more common among women than men, and disproportionately affects Hispanics.
About 12% of children - 8.9 million kids - across the nation have asthma, less than the city's asthma rate for kids.

Source: N.Y.C. Department of Health and Mental Hygiene;National Center for Health Statistics