I Was Clinically Dead For 90 Seconds Because My Teacher Thought My Epilepsy Was A “Trend.” My Friend Didn’t Survive, And The School Is Trying To Cover It Up. We Just Leaked The Security Footage. Is This Enough To Put Her In Jail?

The Investigation Deepens

The police finally scheduled formal interviews with all 23 students who were in the classroom and Orla sat next to me as my attorney while I gave my statement. They asked detailed questions about every minute of that day while a stenographer typed everything I said and two detectives took notes. Miss Blackwood’s lawyer had apparently advised her not to speak to investigators, which Orla said was basically an admission that she knew she’d done something wrong.

Two days later the IT guy from the district called Orla’s office while I was there going over paperwork and she put him on speaker so we could both hear what he found. He pulled up the Smartboard logs from that exact classroom on that exact day and there it was: a YouTube video titled “Extreme Strobe Light Challenge 10 hours” played from 11:42 a.m. to 11:54 a.m., exactly when everything happened. The log showed Miss Blackwood’s login credentials started the video and set it to full screen mode at maximum brightness. Seeing that digital proof made my chest feel tight even though it didn’t bring David back or fix what happened to any of us.

The next morning a certified letter arrived at my house from the school district’s lawyers offering me $50,000 if I signed their settlement agreement which included a non-disclosure agreement that would stop me from ever talking about what happened publicly again. My mom read through the 20-page document at the kitchen table while I ate cereal and she kept shaking her head at different parts, especially the section that said I couldn’t post on social media, give interviews, or participate in any legal action against the district or Miss Blackwood personally. The money would cover most of my medical bills from the ambulance ride and emergency room visit plus the new medication I had to take now because my seizures got worse after that day. But signing meant staying quiet about David dying and Miss Blackwood still being on paid leave like nothing happened.

The Settlement Trap

Three days later Malik texted everyone to meet at his garage after school to talk about the settlements since apparently we all got the same offer. When I showed up there were already 12 kids there with their letters spread out on his dad’s workbench. Billy was pacing back and forth saying,

“We should all refuse because taking the money meant they won.”

While Sarah kept saying her family needed the money for her therapy bills since she couldn’t sleep without seeing David’s face turning blue. The arguments got louder when someone’s older brother who was in law school showed up and explained that if we took the settlements we couldn’t be witnesses in each other’s cases or help David’s parents with their wrongful death lawsuit. This made everyone start yelling about whether we owed it to David to refuse the money.

Emily grabbed my arm and pulled me outside where it was quieter and said she thought anyone who took the money was basically saying David’s life was worth $50,000. But then Walsh showed up and started arguing that we’d be stupid not to take guaranteed money when a trial could take years and we might lose anyway. My phone buzzed with a text from Darren saying I should just take the money and use it to move to a different school district where I could start fresh without everyone knowing me as the “seizure girl.” When I showed it to Emily she got mad and said that was exactly what the district wanted: for us to disappear and let them sweep everything under the rug. The stress of being pulled between them made my hand shake and I had to sit down on the curb because I felt another seizure coming on, which scared everyone enough that the arguing stopped for a few minutes while Mallet got me water and made sure I was okay.

Deception and Unity

The next day at the school Principal Penn pulled me out of English class and brought me to her office where she had this whole presentation set up about a “restorative justice healing circle” where Miss Blackwood would apologize to all of us students and we would share our feelings and move forward together as a community. She showed me this PowerPoint with stock photos of people hugging and holding hands in circles while she explained how this would help everyone heal and wouldn’t that be better than all this legal fighting that was tearing the school apart.

Principal Penn’s healing circle PowerPoint with stock photos of people hugging—that timing seems awfully convenient when everyone’s deciding about settlements. Makes me wonder who told her about the garage meeting yesterday and why she pulled just me out of class for this little presentation.

I told her I didn’t want to sit in a circle and pretend to forgive someone who killed my classmate. She got this tight smile and said that was a very strong word to use and maybe I should consider how my “inflammatory language” was affecting other students’ ability to process their trauma. She kept pushing, saying Miss Blackwood was suffering too and deserved a chance to make amends. That’s when I stood up and walked out of her office without saying another word because I knew if I stayed I’d say something that would get me suspended.

That afternoon Orla called to tell me that David’s mom’s lawyer reached out about coordinating our cases since the district was trying to play us against each other by offering different settlement amounts to different families based on how much they thought we’d fight. Ne Pritchard, that was the lawyer’s name, wanted all the families to work together so the district couldn’t pick us off one by one with these settlement offers. Hearing that David’s mom was fighting too made me feel less alone in refusing to just take the money and shut up.

Over the next two weeks Orla had me come to her office every day after school to practice for my deposition, making me tell the story over and over while she played the role of Miss Blackwood’s lawyer asking hostile questions designed to make me look like a liar or attention seeker. She taught me to pause before answering, to only answer exactly what was asked without offering extra information, and to stay calm even when the questions made me angry. Which was hard when she asked things like whether I’d ever exaggerated my symptoms before or if I enjoyed the attention I got from having seizures. We even planned what to do if I had a seizure during the deposition, with Orla making sure the court reporter knew to note everything that happened and having my medical alert information ready in case opposing council tried to claim I was faking.