Mrs Blessing Adeniran, mother of 12-year-old Whitney, a student of Chrisland International School, Opebi branch, Lagos, who died at the inter-house held by the school last Thursday has finally spoken to the issues of her daughter’s death.
In a video shared online, the bereaved mother narrated that her daughter, Whitney had attended her school’s inter-house sports, last Thursday, February 9th.
She said she was at the event when she noticed that her daughter was nowhere to be found during the match past and other activities.
On getting to the hospital where her daughter was taken to, she met her dead body. She said up till now, the school has not opened up to her about what happened to her.
She narrated, “During the match past, I looked, the first house matched, I didn’t see my child. The second house matched, but I didn’t see my child. The third house matched, but I didn’t see my child, so I became worried.
She noted that she then began a search for her daughter immediately and was told by a student that her daughter had fainted. She stated that no teacher of staff called or mentioned what had happened to her.
She noted that it was in the course of trying to unravel the whereabouts of her child that a staff of the school then mentioned to her that her daughter was just rushed to school.
She added, “We drove out of the stadium to the gate, we asked the gate men (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 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, but 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.”
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, by the time I got there, my daughter’s lips and tongue had already turned black.”
Adeniran further also revealed that her daughter was not taken to a hospital but to an immunization 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, and 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 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’.”
Earlier Whitney’s father, Adeniran, 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.
In response to the outburst, the management of Chrisland schools through a press statement condoled the death of the deceased and explained that they had previously reported to the parents that their child wasn’t in good health condition.
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.
“We are heartbroken and distressed. Whitney was one of our Day students who opted not to participate in the inter-house sports match past for reasons we were not very sure of.
“However, on discretion, we respected her decision to err on the side of caution, because, on January 20, 2023, it is in our records that she had complained about not-too-buoyant health and we immediately contacted her parents.
“Her father, Mr. Michael Adeniran, came to the school to take her home. We emphasised to her parents to take a critical look at her.”
Chrisland school further noted that the deceased slumped in “public view and not under any hidden circumstances,” adding that she was rushed to the nearest medical facility for first aid.
“Our immediate response was to take advantage of proximity to first-aid, by identifying the nearest medical facility to take her to, where the doctor on duty, administered oxygen and every aid possible on her,” the statement said.
Chrisland appealed to the Adeniran family to establish a scientific verification of the underlying cause of her death before her burial.
“We immediately notified regulatory stakeholders and agencies to allow for a comprehensive evaluation and assessment of the developments.”
