Asthma doesn't have to be fatal. It can be fatal, but it doesn't need to be. One of the reasons school nurses are so important is because they are trained to understand the effects of an acute asthma attack. This is a tragedy that didn't need to happen:
Sixth-grader Laporshia Massey died from asthma complications, according to her father, who says he rushed her to the emergency room soon after she got home from school on the afternoon of Sept. 25. He says Laporshia had begun to feel ill earlier that day at Bryant Elementary School, where a nurse is on staff only two days a week. This day was not one of those days.
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But neither Burch nor Mitchell realized how serious the situation was. Burch, who told his daughter they would take care of her symptoms when she got home, believes that a trained professional would have seen the danger. “Why,” he asks, “didn’t [the school] take her to the hospital?”
Seeing his daughter’s state when she arrived home at about 3:15 p.m., Burch says, he
