On Thursday, October 8, 2009 at about 12.15pm EST, Stevie Christopher “Christopher” Caldwell, the eldest child of Jaime and Stevie David Caldwell was stabbed in a Home Economics class at Madison Central High School. This story has made state wide headlines for the last two days straight. At the last time of reporting, he was stated as being “stable” and recovering well at the University of Kentucky Hospital in Lexington, KY.<\/p>\n
Christopher is one of my nephews, being the eldest of Jaime’s sons, Jennifer’s older sister. The most surreal part of this whole story is that we were up in Richmond, KY on Tuesday, October 6 and had visited the family. I even spent about 20 minutes teaching Christopher about Composite functions for his Pre-Calculus honors class. Why were we in Richmond? Because I had a couple of job interviews in Lexington, which is just down the road from Richmond.<\/p>\n
The way we’ve been told, Jacob Hamblin, the kid who stabbed Christopher, was in Home Economics with Christopher. As it turns out, this kid is constantly in trouble at school and didn’t get on particularly well with Christopher in the first place. While Christopher was using a knife in class, Jacob demanded to have it, to which Christopher responded “No!” Jacob repeated the demand and Christopher responded “Come and get it!” Apparently, Jacob punched Christopher a couple times and elbowed him in the face. Christopher promptly proceeded to beat the snot out of Jacob. (Did I mention Christopher is a very skilled Ju-jitsu practitioner and a member of the Wrestling team at Madison Central?) Somewhere in the melee, Christopher was stabbed in the chest.<\/p>\n
The injury went unnoticed until the fight was over, when Christopher realized he was bleeding. As it turns out, the blade was a mere 1\/4″ (6mm) away from his heart and had punctured his lung. The doctors had to insert a couple of chest tubes to drain the blood from his chest. The last thing we heard was that he was going to be fine but surgeons might have to go into his chest with an endoscope and deflate his lung so they could drain the blood.<\/p>\n
All I can say is that considering how close the blade come to his heart, we are extremely lucky to have him with us still. A matter of a 1\/4″ and we would have been burying our nephew way before his time.<\/p>\n
This whole incident brings back some very vivid memories of an incident I was party to back in Hamilton some four or five years ago. Whilst playing some Beach Volleyball in a small sandpit in the middle of a park in Hamilton, a young kid came running up to us saying “Can someone call the police? My bro’s just been stabbed!”<\/p>\n
I thought this kid was trying to funny at first, until I looked at his hands and noticed they were absolutely drenched in blood. Once we realized he was serious, all my friends took off with him and I proceeded to grab my cell phone and dial 111, the emergency number in New Zealand. I promptly told the woman on the other end what had happened and where we were, then proceeded to wait by the side of the road so I could flag down the emergency services.<\/p>\n
Once they arrived, I walked around to where the kid was and the reality of the entire situation hit home as I was met by the vision of a very pale young Maori boy. When the paramedics finally got there and assessed him, they quickly loaded him up, lifting his limp, barely alive body into the Ambulance. He died on the way to the Hospital, just 5 minutes away from the scene of the crime.<\/p>\n
What was so bad that it incited such a violent attack? He was wearing his colors and ran into some rivals. The saddest part about all of this is that the kid who got stabbed, the kid who came to get us and the kid who actually did the stabbing were only 14 or 15 years old. Somehow, they had gotten themselves mixed up in a world they knew nothing about and now one had paid the ultimate price.<\/p>\n
It kinda makes you think about the world our children are growing up in. Gone are the days of walking to school. Gone are the days of playing in the streets, carefree in the knowledge you were safe. Gone are the days you knew everybody on your street and could go to people next door if your mum was late getting home before you got home from school. These are all things I took for granted in my youth, and now I couldn’t imagine letting my daughter doing a single thing on the list above. It really makes you think. Thank God Christopher was not a 1\/4″ in the wrong direction. Thank God we can breath a sigh of relief, knowing that we will get to see him live to reach his potential. Thank God that today, Friday, 9 October, 2009, just three days after her 33rd birthday, Jaime is able to hug her eldest son another day, instead of burying him long before his time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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