The family of a seventh-grader who was critically injured at Robert Smalls Middle School this week rushed to a Charleston hospital Thursday night where the boy has slipped into a coma, friends, family and authorities said.

Matthew Walls, 13, of Beaufort, was on life support at Medical University of South Carolina after being injured Monday morning in a Robert Smalls Middle hallway in an incident school district officials have called "horseplay," said his 21-year-old brother, Daniel Walls.

Immediate family members at the hospital could not be reached for comment, and hospital officials said they do not discuss patients' conditions. But a cousin who was with the family at the hospital said in a phone interview late Thursday that Matthew was showing little brain activity; however, doctors were considering taking him off his respirator because his breathing was improving.

Earlier Thursday, a group of nearly 20 people -- some friends and family of Matthew -- gathered on Robert Smalls' front lawn to protest the school and the school district. Some of Matthew's classmates who held signs in front of the school on W.K. Alston Drive said he and another boy were playing a game Monday morning, punching each other in the chest. Matthew punched the boy in the chest and upset him, said 13-year-old William Gill of Beaufort, who said he watched the incident.

The boy punched Matthew back in the chest several times, he said. Matthew cried, "Quit, I have asthma," William said, and the boy smashed Matthew into a concrete wall. His head hit the wall's corner and he fell to the ground, he said.

An officer Beaufort County Sheriff's Office arrived at the school at 9:45 a.m., according to a police report that said Matthew had a cut on his head.

"It wasn't (an) accident," William said as he clutched a foam cross with a picture of Matthew -- known to friends and family as "Matt-Matt" -- taped to it. "No Child Left Behind" was scrawled on the cross in black marker.

A student has been suspended in connection with the incident and will face a disciplinary hearing next week, school district spokeswoman Jill Weinberger said Thursday. She directed other questions to the Beaufort County Sheriff's Office, which is investigating the incident.

As of Thursday, no charges had been filed related to the incident, according to the Sheriff's Office.

The school district released a brief statement Monday afternoon that said a student had fallen and been taken to MUSC, but friends at the protest said they are not satisfied and want a full account of what happened Monday morning. The school district also sent a letter about the incident home with students, and counselors assisted students in need the next day.

Nancy Boysworth, 43, of Beaufort, said she is a "supporter" of Matthew and believes the school's staff did not give him proper emergency care after the incident.

"But because of the failed system of Beaufort County, they let this child fall into a coma," she said. "Nothing is being done about it. No ifs, ands or buts."

The demonstrators lined up along both sides of W.K. Alston for several hours with signs encouraging vehicles to honk their horns in support.

The Walls family has hired a lawyer and plans to challenge the school district, Daniel Walls said.

"We're not worried about the money," he said. "We're just worried about Matt-Matt's safety."

Matthew is not the first student to be seriously injured after being hit repeatedly in the chest at a county school.

Francisco Belman, an eighth-grader at H.E. McCracken Middle School, died after two other students hit him in the chest repeatedly in a school bathroom in 2002. The incident was part of an initiation into the "Latin Mafia" group, authorities said.

In 2004, Belman's father filed a lawsuit seeking $2 million in damages from seven sets of defendants ranging from school and government officials to the parents of the two teens who pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the death of his son.