MONTEGO BAY, St James — THE mother of Jaime Brown, the late 13-year-old Cornwall College seventh grade student who collapsed last month during the school’s traditional cross-country race to herald the athletics season, is accusing the administration of the 104-year-old institution of negligence.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I have just completed a course in physical education… the school broke every safety rule,” said Karen Brown at last Sunday’s memorial service for her son.

Hundreds of mourners, excluding school principal Denham McIntyre, attended the funeral at the Western Union Circuit of Seventh-day Adventist Church in Montego Bay.

Young Brown, who was remembered at Sunday’s service as a multi-talented boy, died on Friday, January 22 after completing a run with his schoolmates that took his life.

In a scathing address entitled “ From a Mother’s Heart”, Brown described the events that prefaced her son’s death.

“The students of Cornwall College

were sent out to run a cross-country

race sometime between 2:00 and 3:00 in the intense heat of the afternoon

without the necessary provisions in

place. Participants revealed that there were no water stops and no adult supervision except for a policeman who travelled at the front of the pack and one car which was travelling at the back,” she said.

“There was no medical personnel on hand and the ambulance was late in arriving and subsequently was parked on the school grounds. The nurse also stayed on the school grounds. That event was so badly supervised that Jaime went to run in his black socks and shoes, no one noticed that he was not attired in his running shoes.

Brown posed several questions to the school’s administration during the passionate address.

Among them:

• How could an activity that takes place off school property happen without the written consent of parents?

• Why wasn’t any screening done to determine the physical fitness of the students?

• Was there pre-participation examination for students? (Did they have enough time for digestion and were they dehydrated before the race?)

• Who designed the long and difficult route for the race which included 12 and 13 years old?

• Why were the children thrown out to run on the main road to battle with the traffic on a road that does not have a sidewalk?

• Why didn’t they have trained personnel to stop those who were exhausted and remove them from the race?

• Why didn’t they have medical personnel, trained in CPR and equipped with first-aid supplies riding and driving at various points along the route with them?

• Why were there no water stops along such a long and hilly route?

• Why were the children sent out to run at 2:00 pm when the sun was at its hottest?

McIntyre refused, through his secretary, to comment on the issue.

However, a teacher at the school explained on condition of anonymity, that everything was done according to custom.

“The ambulance was here, we did everything eternally possible. We are all hurt. The trauma team was brought in; the president of the school board; president of the PTA; chairman of the school; chaplain of the St James JCF; old boys’ president among others,” the teacher said.

The boy’s father, Horace Brown, himself a Cornwall College old boy, said he took part in the annual event during his school years. He expressed a little disappointment in the slight change of route.

“It is an annual race you know, and every single boy that went to Cornwall did that race. This is the athletic season… you almost can call it a school ritual. Every old boy you talk to will tell you that that same little hill is our route. They kind of changed it this year. And when I am thinking back I was saying with all the traffic and stuff why didn’t they keep the same route like Mango Walk and come back around Paradise and come back around Albion and come back that way? Why they went on the main road?”

Recounting the night before Jamie’s fatal run, Brown said his son was so excited about the race that he hardly slept.

“He was getting up out of bed and going back and forth and so on. I kept telling him to go to sleep and the morning he was so excited. When the race was ready he called me at 2:00 o’clock to say that I should come for him at 3:00 o’clock,” said Brown.

The Observer West has since learnt that the postmortem concluded that Jamie died as a result of cardiac arrest.