As someone who suffered from childhood asthma, you are misinformed.
I had it as well. Pretty bady, as did every one of my siblings.
Asthma attacks can range from something as little as a small cough, to a complete shut-off of air - something just as dangerous as a heart attack. You can be sufferer of asthma for years and only deal with the occasional cough, then all of a sudden get one of the "big" ones. It's insulting to say that "it's an asthma attack, not a heart attack." The big attacks are some of the worst, most horrifying things a person can experience - imagine feeling immense sharp pain in your lungs as if being stabbed by thousands of red hot knives, and quite literally drowning; gasping (if you're even able to) between violent coughs but not being able to get any air. It's horrifying and deadly, not sensationalist.
I’m aware of how it feels.
I’m also aware that while you can have only the “occasional cough” and get a really bad attack, that is not the norm for asthma sufferers.
First, most schools don't allow you to carry inhalers. Pretty much the only medication you are allowed to physically carry on your person is an epi-pen. Secondly, the vast majority of asthma sufferers do not experience the major attacks such as this kid did, and ultimately become conditioned to not needing on their person at all times.
That’s all well and good…If I’m a kid or the parent of a kid who has suffered bad asthma attacks, or even moderate ones, and I think an inhaler will help, to Hell with their rules, I’m carrying one, or I’m damn well making sure the paperwork is done so I can have one at the school.
This nurse was wrong. It has nothing to do with the signature or lack thereof. A student needed medical attention and she refused to give it, or contact 911.
It’s certainly possible.
Thus far, the nurse was wrong…based on what this student, who was supposedly having an attack so bad he thought he was dying, said.
All we have is what this kid said happened. The student claims she locked the door and did nothing to help him, and that she was just watching him die. For all we know, he had some issues breathing, but was still relatively okay when the mother was called or had JUST started having the serious part of the attack, or the worst of it, just before or when his mother showed up. For all we know, he was overreacting and falling to the floor because he’d never experienced it before, or because he was panicking along with the attack.
To say the nurse “refused” his inhaler? There’s a bit of a difference between the school taking his inhaler and the nurse outright refusing to give it to him. For all we know she didn’t have time to get to it, or didn't know where it was.
For all we know, he's lying.
And as bad as it was based on his story...he didn’t die, did he? Did they end up calling 911 when his mother got there? Was his attack not that bad, and he just felt okay afterward? There are too many elements of this story that aren’t apparently considered important.
Until we hear her side of the story, its pretty much sensationalism.
