Student dies from cutlass wounds during punishment

The Ashanti Regional Director of the Ghana Education, Mr Safo Kantanka has instituted swift investigations into the death of second year old student of the Effiduase Senior High School in the Ashanti Region.

Ebenezer Kusi, 18, died at the Effiduasi Government hospital on Monday after inflicting cutlass wounds on himself.

Confirming the incident to Graphic online, the Effiduase District Police Crime Officer, ASP Opoku Yamoah the body of the deceased has been deposited at the Effiduase Government Hospital for autopsy.

According to sources at the school, Kusi and his colleagues were weeding some portions of the school as their punishment for various infringements of school rules and regulations.

The source said the students spotted a rodent and in the process all of them abandoned the weeding and pursued the animal with their cutlasses. Kusi, who was in the forefront of those chasing the rodent, lifted his sharp cutlass to kill the animal.

It said when Kusi fell, they all thought he (Kusi) had killed the animal and started commending him, however, unknown to them, Kusi had missed the target and opened a deep cutlass cut on his right thigh with his cutlass.

This was realised when they got close and saw blood gushing out of Kusi’s thigh and rushed him to the Effiduase Government Hospital but died minutes later.

Regional Director

Speaking to Graphic online, the Regional Director of Education who had visited the exact place on the school’s compound where the student fell, confirmed the death and said he was locked up in a crunch meeting with the management of the school and other stakeholders.

Police

The Effiduase District Police Crime Officer, ASP Opoku Yamoah in an interview with the said it was the headmaster, Mr A. A. Amoah Antwi who voluntarily reported the matter to the police Sunday.

He said other statements taken from others from the school in connection with the death did not conflict in any way the account by the headmaster.

That notwithstanding, ASP Yamoah said the police had initiated investigations into the matter.