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Family of Montreal boy stabbed in the eye with pencil say it could have been prevented

Family of Montreal boy stabbed in the eye with pencil say it could have been prevented

The parents of a boy who was stabbed in the eye with a pencil by another schoolmate in Pointe-aux-Trembles said the school and the alleged attacker's parents could have prevented the incident from happening.

Alexandro Baiamonte, 10, was just outside the schoolyard of École François-La-Bernarde when he approached his schoolmate, a nine-year-old boy, on April 22.

"He came with two pencils in his hand. He wanted to fight me," said Alexandro, who goes by Alex.

Alex said he began to fight with the boy and ended up getting stabbed in the eye with the sharp-end of a pencil.

Alex's mother, Filomena Follano, said her son usually comes to her office on Fridays at lunchtime since she works across the street.

That day, Follano said Alex came to her office with a hand over his eye, accompanied by another girl from his school.

"She told me 'I think he has something in his eye,'" Follano said.

Follano took her son to the optometrist and was precipitously sent to the hospital where she was told Alex needed surgery to removed a piece of pencil lead from inside his eye.

Doctors said Alex could have been blinded if the pencil had hit his retina.

He now wears a plastic eyepatch over his right eye and won't know if it has healed properly for another two months.

Previous bullying reported

Alex and his parents had recently moved to Pointe-aux-Trembles from the St-Michel neighbourhood last fall.

"I was not excited because I have a lot of friends [at my old school]," Alex said.

According to his dad, Alex and the boy who stabbed him in the eye had a conflicting friendship and he had previously reported instances of bullying to the school.

"This little boy, every time he was with Alex alone, he would play with him. But when he was with other friends or older friends, he would bully Alex and Alex would defend himself," said Daniele Baiamonte.

When Baiamonte confronted the other boy's parents, he was surprised to find that they were indifferent.

"I told the parents 'If this goes further I'm gonna call the cops,' and they said 'what do you think the cops are gonna do?'" Baiamonte said. He eventually did file a police report.

"I guess they don't care. They don't care what their children do at school or after school."

Baimonte said the school wasn't much more helpful and appeared to be in denial.

"If there were teachers in the schoolyard, this never would have happened," Baiamonte said.

More supervision and cameras

The Commission scolaire de la Pointe-de-l'Île, the school board that École François-La-Bernarde belongs to, said the boy who stabbed Alex was suspended.

For Baiamonte, the suspension doesn't get at the root cause of the issue.

"The problem is the parents. It's not even the kids, the kids are innocent. What the parents say or do at home, the kids do."

Baiamonte and Follano are adamant that more supervision at school and even cameras are necessary to prevent something like what happened to Alex from happening again.

For now, doctors have said that Alex could go back to school this week. But both he and his parents say it may take him a little longer than that.

"He's supposed to go back but he's not feeling well. His eye is still hurting, he says he sees blurry." Baiamonte said.

"I'm feeling nervous," Alex said.