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WCBS-TV New York
Brooklyn Boy Bit By Rodent In
'Time-Out' At School
December 20, 2006
By Hazel Sanchez
 (CBS)
BROOKLYN A Brooklyn family is lashing out at the school system after
a 5-year-old boy was bit by a rodent while in school Wednesday.
Richard Medina was shocked when he
received a call that his son Patrick was bit by what he described as
a rat that he was playing with during school. Patrick loves playing
with his family's pet hamster, "Marissa," at home, but the rodent he
played with inside his special education classroom at PS 231 was no
teacher's pet.
After Patrick was apparently bit
twice, the school immediately contacted his parents and rushed him
to a nearby hospital.
"They told me he was sitting in a
time-out chair which they said was in a closet, which really
bothered me," Richard told CBS 2's Hazel Sanchez. "So when they took
him off the time-out, he went back to the area because [rats] are
little crawling things fun for a little boy, and he got bit."
Patrick claims the rat that bit him
is bigger than his pet "Marissa," but the Department of Education
says it was not a rat that bit him, but actually a mouse. They also
say Patrick was not in a time-out closet, but in a corner next to a
cabinet where the mouse was found.
Officials have caught the mouse and
say it will be tested. In the meantime, the classroom will be
fumigated, but that isn't comforting enough for the Medina's.
"[It shouldn't matter] even if the
corner is next to a closet. The point is he was somewhere where he
was unsupervised long enough for something to bite him. And that's a
real problem," Medina says.
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