Blair Retallick, 8, hit by car in Townsville while fleeing bully

Parents had reported bullying
"Nothing had been done"
Fractured skull, lacerated liver

A YOUNG boy has suffered terrible injuries while fleeing a bully who threatened to kill him and his school did nothing to prevent it, his mother says. Eight-year-old Blair Retallick is in intensive care after fleeing a tormentor on a school bus and running into the path of a four-wheel drive outside a Townsville school on Monday. Patricia Retallick said her son was the target of a long-running campaign by school bullies and had been kicked, spat on, bitten, punched and verbally abused. But nothing was done despite her many complaints to Bohlevale State School and the bus company, she said. Blair remains in the Townsville Hospital with injuries including a fractured skull, a bruise to his brain, and a lacerated liver.

Mrs Retallick said Blair and her other children, including a daughter aged five, had been targeted by bullies on the school bus for some time. She said her approaches to the school achieved nothing, nor did her complaints to the bus company running the school service. "He was having an altercation with a child on the bus and it flowed out as the bus stopped," she told the ABC. "He was running as the boy was saying to him 'I'm going to kill you' and he ran straight into the path of a car as he was running away from the boy."

She said witnesses, including other children on the bus, had reported the tormentor's kill threat, and said kids from other families had also been bullied on the bus but nothing had been done. "It shouldn't have happened. It should have been dealt with," Mrs Retallick said. "The majority of families on that bus have had issues with those kids on that bus." Mrs Retallick said she raised the bullying issue with the school as recently as Monday morning, just before her son was injured. The incident comes just a week after the Queensland Government said it would create a new alliance to tackle violence in schools.

The announcement came after a government report found schools were not properly checking if their anti-bullying programs were working. In a statement, Education Queensland's North Queensland region director Mike Ludwig said it was premature to speculate on the cause of the accident.

Counselling had been offered to the family, he said. Mrs Retallick said she wanted action, including better systems to report bullying. "There needs to be changes with the education department on how we can report these things," she said. She said Blair could be in hospital for up to a month. "It's unknown at the moment. Some of his injuries are so extensive that anything could happen and it could change in the blink of an eye," she said. Monday was supposed to have been the last day her children caught the bus to school. The family was planning to move to New South Wales and the ongoing bullying had been a factor in the decision to move, Mrs Retallick said.

C O M M E N T S :

I would like to point out that bullying is a serious case which needs to be taken care of fast. People who was been bullied could suffered much worse that we can imagine. It might affect their whole life in the sense of mental health problems such as low self-esteem, stress, depression and anxiety. They may also think about suicide. Yet because older people don’t always see it, they may not understand on how extreme bullying can get.
In the case here, the school should play a big role as it happened during their services – in the school bus. They take no serious into this situation and clearly we can see that it cause a greater impact. The school should just confront the bullies and give them, maybe last warning or heavy punishment. It is unfortunate for the little boy who is trying to get away from the bullies but then being hit by a car.