Leland Student Fall May
Involve Building Problem
BY MARJOR1K MF.G1VKRN
The fall in a Lcland Middle School hallway last
week by 11 -year-old Andy Heweit may have been
caused by more lhan a simple climb onto water foun
tains. contends his mother. Mrs Kenneth Hcwctt of
Lcland.
The morning of May 24, the boy, cxcused from class
by his teacher, David Mapson, to get a drink ol water,
was found lying in the hall near the water fountains. He
w as reportedly conscious and could walk to the office,
guided by a teacher who was summoned by the student
who found him. The Lcland Rescue Squad was called
and Andy was finally moved to New Hanover Regional
Medical Center, where he was admitted to intensive
care, then transferred out of it the next day.
Mrs. Hewett said Friday there is more to the story.
Andy was home from the hospital, having suffered a
crack in the ccrvical spine and a fractured skull, she
said, and had given them details of the incident.
"Andy and another little boy were in the hall togeth
er," she related. "They found some ceiling tiles missing
above the water fountain and Luther climbed up to ex
plore the hole in the ceiling. Both of them climbcd from
a small water fountain to a higher one, and when Andy
tried to gel into the hole, he lost his balance and hit his
head on the floor."
The other boy. she said, had cither already jumped to
the fUx>r or did so at that point. "Andy was unconscious
when Mr. Mapson got him up from the floor," Mrs.
Hewett went on, "'and took him to the office. When he
got to the officc, he began throwing up. He was kind of
in and out and kept telling Mr. Mapson, '1 want my
Daddy,' An officc worker slapped him in the face to
wake him up completely. All this happened between
11:15 and 1 1:30 a.m."
The rescue squad was called at 12:30 p.m., accord
ing to Mrs. Hcwett. "Mr. Mapson told them to call the
squad when he first walked in the office," Mrs. He welt
said. "You couldn't ask for anyone to be more concerned
than he was, but they put off calling and when it finally
got there, Jane Erwin, the EMT, was really upset. She
had been told to go in back of the school with lights off,
even though the front entrance of the school is closest to
the office."
She also quoted Erwin as saying that the boy
shouldn't have been moved by untrained personnel.
At the medical center, Andy began having convul
sions, his mother said.
Meanwhile, his father was notified at work about
2:45 p.m.
"This was done by our nephew, who heard about
Andy through the grapevine and called my husband. He
beat the ambulance to the hospital."
The boy is now ordered to rest at home for six weeks
to eight weeks, with limited acuvity, she said.
"He's a very curious, active little boy, a real busy
body," Mrs. Hewett said. "1 understand what Andy did
was wrong, but having missing tiles in the ceiling was
an open invitation to kids.
"I'm going to talk to an attorney and want to be sure
we get better medical support in the schools."
Repeated efforts to contact Lcland Middle School
Principal Christine Hall were unsuccessful and Assistant
Principal Robert Rhync said only that he was not aware
of missing ceiling tiles in that particular location, and he
would investigate.
Emergency Plans Tested Tuesday
In Brunswick Nuclear Plant "Alert"
At 9:21 Tuesday morning, Caro
lina Power and Light Inc. notified
Brunswick County officials that an
"unusual event" had occurred near
its nuclear power plant outside
South port.
At 9:58 a.m. a sccond facsimile
transmission from the plant reported
that an earthquake in Wilmington
had caused "minor fuel damage" to
its Unit 1 reactor, forcing a shut
down.
Fifteen minutes later CP&L noti
fied Brunswick County that a cool
ant leak had resulted in "a complete
loss of ability to maintain the plant
in a cold shutdown." An emergency
alert was issued, warning that condi
tions at the plant were degrading.
Throughout the day more than
200 county, state, and federal emer
gency management personnel re
sponded to radiation releases, alert
ed shelters, dispatched law enforce
ment officers, set up roadblocks and
Study Shows
BY MARJORIE MEGIVERN
Ask teen-agers in any Brunswick
County high school if their after
school job adversely affects grades
or school work and some will deny
it
Most tcachcrs, on the other hand,
have had experiences to the con
trary.
One thing everyone acknowl
edges is the prevalence of the work
ing student. Often, family finances
demand the extra income; more of
ten, teenagers want independence or
the ability to purchase that first car.
A recent study conducted by the
N.C. Department of Public Instruc
tion shows that 25 percent of North
Carolina high school students work
and the same percentage holds true
for Brunswick County, according to
Kay Williams, one of the consul
tants conducting the study.
'The General Assembly passed
legislation last year mandating this
study so they could find out more
about student achievement and the
factors that affect it," she said.
Local results indicate 590
Brunswick County high school stu
dents hold down jobs, including
those obtained with the help of vo
cational programs and Job Training
Partnership Act (JTPA) programs.
'The school system informed us
through the questionnaire that it
does have guidelines with the busi
ness community as to working con
ditions for these students," she said.
"In Brunswick County 100 busi
nesses told us they provide release
time for their working students to at
tend parcnt-tcachcr conferences."
William Furpless, director of vo
cational education, said his depart
ment includes a variety of programs
that assist in placing students in jobs
appropriate to their classroom work.
"This on-the-job training exists
in marketing education, home eco
nomics, business and office, and in
dustrial cooperative training," he
said. "In a properly run co-op pro
gram there shouldn't be a problem
for kids and their school work."
A written arrangement with em
ployers requires them to be in school
regularly and they arc closely super
vised and trained under program
guidelines, he pointed out.
The JTPA program, under the ju
risdiction of Dropout Prevention
Specialist Wendy Milligan, targets
potential dropouts, single parents
and juvenile offenders.
"We try to break the cycle of
poverty," Mrs. Milligan said, "so
we find employers for on-the-job
training."
She said the YWCA, Employ
ment Security Commission and Try
Out program helps place students in
jobs, with the salaries funded by JT
PA.
A 1988 study of dropouts in the
state's public schools, indicated that
half those leaving school said their
job interfered with classes. The stale
Department of Public Instruction has
estimated that nearly half the 20,0(X)
high-school students who dropped
directed the evacuation of residents
in response to Brunswick County's
worst nightmare.
Fortunately, this was only a test.
But a realistic one, putting region
al emergency response plans across
the region on full alert in an evalua
tion of their ability to react to a
rapidly unfolding, large-scale cala
mity.
The exercise is required every
two years by the Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA) and
the Nuclear Regulatory Commis
sion. Using a scenario known only
themselves, test organizers regularly
issued realistic bulletins of changing
conditions at the plant. Emergency
officials were forced to respond as
they would in an actual alert.
A later dispatch Tuesday reported
that one victim had been contami
nated by radiation. Another at 11:40
a.m. said a second seismic event hail
shaken the plant. At 1:05 p.m. a
buildup of hydrogen gas in the con
tainment area reportedly forced
evacuation of ail personnel up N.C.
211.
As each new event was reported,
different aspccLs of the emergency
operations plan were tested.
Nearly all Brunswick County de
partments participated in the drill, as
did New Hanover County, FEMA,
the N.C. Division of Emergency
Management N.C. Highway Patrol,
the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S.
Army National Guard and the Sun
ny Point Military Operations Term
inal.
At the height of the alert there
were about 70 people secured in the
county's emergency operation cen
ter taking part in the drill or evaluat
ing the reaction to it. Sheriff's
deputies guarded the doors, allow
ing public entry only as far as the re
ception area.
Inside, computer maps appeared
on a large screen charting the latest
information from the plant and high
lighting what areas might need to be
evacuated. As the "emergency"
worsened, calls were made to evacu
ate schools. Police were dispatched
to control traffic. A rescue squad
was sent to transport a "patient" to a
contamination unit at Doshcr
Memorial Hospital in Southport.
County Manager David Clegg felt
the exercise "went really well" and
was pleased with the county's re
sponse. He said state-of-the-art
communications equipment at the
emergency operation's center kept
Brunswick well ahead of other par
ticipants in the drill.
There will be a formal critique of
the drill by officials from Brunswick
and New Hanover counties, the state
and CP&L at 11:30 a.m. Thursday,
June 4, at the EOC building at the
county complex in Bolivia. The
public is invited to attend.
One In Four County Students Holds Job
out last year had found that to be
true.
Percy Hewett and Felishia Hill
are West Brunswick students who
each work about 20 hours a week,
Hewett for a grocery store chain and
Hill as busgirl at a local restaurant.
They said emphatically that their
jobs don't interfere with homework
or their sleep.
South Brunswick High School
(SBHS) senior David Short had a
different story. "I've worked this
year as a cook and busboy at
Sandpiper Restaurant," he said, "and
have to slay pretty late at work. I
know I'd have made better grades if
I hadn't been working. I was just too
tired after work to study and I'd
daydream in class."
Another SBHS worker-student,
Kenneth Moore, said his job at
McDonald's brought his grades
down at first.
"Then I got more serious about
schoolwork and brought them up,"
he added.
SBHS industrial education coor
dinator Rita Hargrove told of an
honor student who works two jobs
at the mall, "to buy a car," and said
the young woman managed to keep
up her honors status.
Linda Callendcr, a West Bruns
wick English icachcr, said she has
had working students in her classes
who fell asleep in class because of
laic working hours.
"It's particularly bad when they
work ai grocery stores, where they
have 10 stay late stocking the shelves
after the store closes," she said.
A final word of wisdom came
from Moore, who said, "A serious
student wouldn't let work make a
difference."
Legislation currently in a Senate
committee in the General Assembly,
prohibits students with a D or F av
erage from working more than 40
hours a week.
An article in the June 1990 issue
of Teacher Magazine , "The Lure of
the Paycheck," casts a different per
spective on those activities that dis
tract teenagers from learning. It
quotes a researcher on working
teens as arguing that "jobs are too
often the only thing tcachcrs blame
when they see a drop in grades.
How do we know the same doesn't
apply to extra-curricular activities?"
School athletics was mentioned
specifically as a common cause of
fatigue in class and difficulty with
academic success.
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