Jeddah's Education Department has begun its investigations into how 14-year-old Majed Basaeed, one of 41 pupils from Al-Falah School on a day trip to King Fahd Coastal City on Sunday, nearly drowned after entering a swimming pool unattended and ended up in intensive care in a coma. Investigators have been questioning teachers and pupils present on the trip, as well as the lifeguard at the swimming pool who Civil Defense officials said earlier in the week did not possess the correct certificates or qualifications for the position in which he was employed. The lifeguard was instead registered as an electrician by profession. The Education Department put an immediate halt to all school trips to amusement and leisure parks on Sunday after the incident, in which Majed, said to be a non-swimmer, reportedly lay at the bottom of the pool for 20 minutes before being rescued by fellow pupils. The same pupils said that the lifeguard at the site failed to hear their cries for help because he was “busy talking on the telephone”, and added that the First Aid room at the Coastal City refused to attend to Majed on the pretext that he required “urgent hospital attention”. The 14-year-old was taken by Red Crescent ambulance to the International Medical Center in Al-Ruwais, and doctors said that 45 minutes had elapsed between the boy's removal from the pool and his arrival at the hospital. Majed's father, meanwhile, said he had signed no permission paper for his son to go on the trip and blamed the school and the Coastal City for the incident, criticisms rejected by Abdul Rahman Al-Salami, the school educational supervisor, however. “The school took all the necessary measures prior to the trip, and three teachers were charged with the pupils' care, but one of them had another appointment and was due to join up with the others shortly after,” Al-Salami said. Al-Salami also said that Majed's father was aware of the trip. “He provided his son with a bathing costume and expenses,” he said. Civil Defense chief Abdullah Al-Jeddawi said his officials made a series of observations at the site in addition to the lifeguard's lack of qualifications, and spoke of “considerable concerns” over school trips to such places. “The 41 pupils on the trip were only being supervised by two teachers,” Al-Jeddawi said. A statement from the Education Department said that any failures observed would be “severely punished”. A doctor at the hospital said that Majed arrived in a coma and unable to breathe and was placed in intensive care where he was resuscitated in four minutes. According to the hospital, Majed remains on artificial breathing equipment in intensive care, his condition described as “stable, but serious”, while Majed's father said that he had been told that his son may have suffered brain damage due to the prolonged lack of oxygen to the brain. “The education authorities obviously have not learnt from the death of Muhammad Hakami,” he said, in reference to the seven year-old pupil who died on March 23 while on a water train ride at a Jeddah shopping mall amusements area. Saudi Gazette reported at the time of Hakami's death a Jeddah Education Department official as saying that said the department would issue a circular to all schools banning school trips to “dangerous places”. The ban was said to include amusement parks and swimming pools.
