MARTHA BRAE, Trelawny — Acting principal of William Knibb Memorial High School Audrey Steele is appealing to social media users to stop reposting a video detailing the moment the body of a former student of hers was fished from the river where he drowned.

Sixteen-year-old fifth former Jonathan Eccleston drowned last Thursday.

“We have to be more sensitive,” she urged. “We have to be more sensitive and cognisant of family members and how the posting will help to magnify the pain and suffering of the family. I would ask them to cease. We have to be more sensitive. Let us think of ourselves and our families to see if we would have loved for this to be sent around like that.”

“We have to be very, very conscious of the persons who are grieving. This is no joke, it is no fun,” Steele argued.

According to Deputy Superintendent of Police Christopher Bowen, Jonathan and about seven other boys were at the river fishing last Thursday afternoon when Jonathan slid off the stone on which he was sitting and fell into the water, which is said to be very deep.

The police, military, and members of the Jamaica Fire Brigade, who had gone in search of the teenager, aborted the mission late Thursday evening due to poor visibility.

The body was fished out the following day.

A video displaying the retrieval, and Eccleston’s mother, Marvia Seiveright, weeping hysterically in the background, has been widely circulated since.

When the Jamaica Observer West visited Eccleston’s school on Monday during devotion, it was a sombre occasion.

Members of the Trelawny division of the Jamaica Constabulary’s Community, Safety and Security Branch were among the counselling personnel at the institution, the alma mater of Olympian Usian Bolt.

Steele described Eccleston as a quiet student.

“I was informed on Thursday night about 7:55 that we had lost a student. I did not immediately recognise the name, but later when a photograph was sent, I realised who the student was. A quiet student, somebody you would probably pass along the way. He was never referred for any disciplinary actions,” Steele said.

She recounted that the Ministry of Education and the school chairman informed were the following day. The ministry, she said, dispatched both social workers and guidance counselors to the distressed mother’s home on that day.

Steele lamented that the tragic news came less than a week after one of the school’s former active and vibrant student was buried.

“It is really, really a terrible time for us. For the sake of the children we have to be trying to hold it in,” the pensive-looking acting principal siad.

A sombre Shari Bucknor, Eccleston’s form teacher, also described her former student as quiet.

“He was a wonderful student, he was a quiet one. His death is very unfortunate especially for his classmates. His death really rocked us because he should have been doing CXC in May. So, we are taking it very hard, but we are taking it a step at a time,” she said.