Trip to Class Lands One Student In Emergency Room

By: Arthur Mondale/Eyewitness News 9 | WNCT
Published: May 16, 2008

A students’ routine walk to class lands him in the emergency room.
Now one school in the east is working faster towards repairs and upgrades.
"It was raining that day and the soil was soft and this is where it happened,” said Chip Zullinger, Bertie County Superintendent.
Where a 6’3’’ senior was waist deep in sand and water and had to be rushed to the emergency room.
"Friends my size has a lot of muscle and couldn't get me out and by me moving I...up my leg really bad--fractured knee all over again,” said Bertie High senior Dion Etheridge.
An accident that the superintendent says could have been avoided.
That he says students removed.
Dion's parents say it's an embarrassment that never should have happened that has now left the graduating senior home-schooled.
"These bills are circulating and circulating and we don't have any money to pay these bills,” said Georgia Etheridge, Dion's mother. His father isn’t only concerned about Dion, but the children that will enter the school in the upcoming school year.
But the superintendent says no worries. He won't say how much it'll cost but the district—but they’re planning for upgrades.
From a new roof, to plumbing and other extras.
But it's extras that this student says he won't take advantage of, "I don't even know if I'm going to be able to walk across the stage yet and that's the best part of being a student: Prom and graduation And I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to attend either one."