Student severely injures another with chokehold on bus, prompting Clarksville school employees being placed on unpaid leave
12-year-old Hayden Horton was riding the bus in October when he was allegedly attacked by a high school student.
CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) - A goofball is how Jamie Horton would describe her 12-year-old son, Hayden.
She says her son has no trouble making friends with anyone he meets, which is why she’s still trying to wrap her head around what happened to him last month.
“He loves everybody,” Horton said. “He’s a really empathetic kid.”
Horton says on his way home from school, her son was put in a chokehold by a high school student for an unknown reason on the school bus. She says based off her daughter’s account of what happened, the bus was stopped.
“This was an experience that you could have never anticipated,” Horton said. “She sent me a message and told me a kid on the bus had Hayden in a headlock.”
Horton says the headlock lasted 14 seconds, which doesn’t seem like a ton of time, but in reality, it was enough to change a person’s life forever.
“When Hayden got home, he had scratch marks on his neck, he was upset, but he didn’t want to talk about it,” Horton said.
A week later, Horton was in the back of an ambulance with her son on their way to the Monroe Carrell Children’s Hospital in Nashville. It’s there that doctors discovered Hayden had suffered multiple strokes that led up to one massive stroke.
They say it stemmed from a tear in the vascular muscle in his neck. A tear that could only be made by a twist, or contortion, doctors say.
“It’s almost like a nightmare every morning when you wake up,” Horton said. “You kind of forget where you are, then you have to replay it all in your head again and again. Him not talking is probably the hardest thing.”
Horton says the next thing she knew, Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office detectives and the Department of Child Services came knocking. What shocked her the most was when DCS detectives told her details of what was on the bus surveillance video.
“An adult on the bus made a comment, saying, ‘Well, Hayden you may as well tap out,’” Horton said. “That just kind of rocked my world.”
As a result of the incident, not only are investigators with DCS and the MCSO looking into what happened, but so is the Clarksville-Montgomery County School System. While the investigation continues, two employees with CMCSS were placed on unpaid leave.
“What kind of safety is on that bus if things like this are happening,” Horton asked. “If they’re considered caregivers for our children, they’re transporting our children, not just one or two. They have more children on the bus than a typical teacher has in a classroom. They have to be able to handle any type of situation that happens.”
Horton says her concern lies with if anything like this has happened before. She says she wants to ensure nothing like this ever happens again.
“That’s what we’re waiting on,” Horton said. “To be able to talk to him, to be able to hear him.”
The Montgomery County District Attorney says he’s aware of the case but is waiting until the investigation is complete before reviewing it for charges that could be filed.
Hayden’s next step would be rehabilitation, which the family is still ironing out the steps for.
“He’s a kid and kids are resilient and Hayden’s a fighter,” Horton said.
They’re grateful for the support they’ve received so far from Hayden’s school and the community. They’ve set up a GoFundMe to help alleviate costs associated with his care.
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