I mentioned that I took my son to school today because he missed his bus. On my way an ambulance passed me and much to my surprise at 7:35 AM there was a EMT and an ambulance at the side door of the school. I’ve just found out why:
A teacher at Fitchburg High School died Friday morning after what police are calling an “incident” at the school.
The name of the teacher has not been released and details of the incident are still not known.
Two people have been taken into custody.
Today is graduation day at FHS, this is not how the students wanted this day to be remembered.
Update: Fitchburg Police confirm a male and female are being held. They are giving out no further info and the logs won’t be available till Monday.
My next stop was the mayor’s office, although there was no formal comment A member of the police was meeting with the Mayor and currently the mayor is still scheduled to attend the Democratc State convention in Worcester tomorrow.
Several sources have said that the teacher who died suffered a heart attack while breaking up a fight between two students. I have been unable to obtain any official confirmation from the school, City Hall or the Mayor’s office.
The Press is camped out as close to the school as they are allowed. Police are preventing them from entering.
No press allowed beyond this point
So they are camping out waiting for a statement
The boring part of reporting, the waiting game
Cameras ready to go
As the parent of a student attending I was able to get in and discover that there is no change to the schedule, no change to the graduation tonight however parents are able and have been coming into the school to dismiss their kids.
I have a personal commitment that might take some time, but I’ll keep plugging away.
Update 2: Went back to the school The police were still on the scene and there is a press conference scheduled for 1:30. If I can get my mother to get the kids I will be there. Meanwhile the press is swarming around cars where parents are coming to get their kids early:
The Swarm for the story
Here is some audio of the Swarm:
Note: The video is not the best at the driver’s side of the car because I was quickly shooed away by police since the other side was blocking the road and it doesn’t really make sense to ask about a swarm if you are swarming does it?
At the Press conference the information was confirmed: there was apparently an altercation between two students that he was involved in breaking up. The two students are going to be in court today but there is word on if the charges are going to be directly related to the death.
Press Conference 6-4-10 Fitchburg Police Department
They released the name of the teacher Douglas Vaughn Lloyd 65 was basically a College instructor who helped kids out who were having issues with the Science MCAS tests. I’ll have video of the conference up as soon as I can upload it.
Update 3: the press conference:
Note that they were unwilling to say the charges were unrelated to the death, but listen in contrast to the message sent home:
No where in the message is the circumstances that lead to the death.
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The unasked ‘what if’ question that arises is this. What if the city never closed Burbank Hospital? I’m sure the extra 20-30 minutes it took the ambulance to get from Fitchburg High to Leominster Hospital made a major difference in the outcome of this man’s life than the less than 5 minutes away Burbank Hospital’s emergency room would have been.