Teacher goes to court over crayon injury
'It feels like I am seeing through an aquarium'
A young teacher who was poked in the eye with a crayon last year filed a court application against the education authorities yesterday holding them responsible for the permanent disability she sustained.
Josefa Sammut, a teacher at the Birkirkara primary school, is claiming to have suffered permanent damage in her right eye after she was stabbed by a five-year-old pupil last October.
The 30-year-old teacher, who is heavily pregnant with her first child, together with her husband Neville filed the application against the Education Ministry, the general director for education services and the principal of St Theresa College, of which the school forms part.
They are claiming the employers did not ensure her health and safety at work and failed to address the student's special needs, which had been identified since he started attending the college.
The couple said the authorities failed to address his major needs and violent behaviour despite the danger this posed to both teachers and other pupils.
The education authorities also failed to make good for the damages suffered by Ms Sammut despite two letters sent in January and last month, they claimed.
They called on the court to hold the authorities responsible for Ms Sammut's injury and order them to pay damages.
Ms Sammut told The Times she suffered from traumatic mydriasis and macular oedema, which left her with a 20 per cent disability in her right eye. She explained that because of the injury, her right pupil no longer expanded and retracted according to the light and as a result her vision was blurry.
"It feels like I am seeing through an aquarium," she said.
The teacher said she had not expected to go to work and end up with permanent disability.
The incident was brought to light by the Malta Union of Teachers, which had ordered the boy not to be allowed into class before it was determined whether he needed a facilitator.
But an Education Ministry spokesman had said that by "no stretch of the imagination" could the incident be considered anything but an accident.
Contacted yesterday the ministry spokesman said the authorities had still not been notified of the court application.