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Child Abused by Schoolteacher Awarded Favorable Settlement After Leveraging Medical Animation

When we leave our children under the protection of their teachers, we trust that the teachers will prioritize our childrens' safety and wellness, treating each child as their own. However, in this instance, an elementary school teacher abused the trust of the children she was supervising — as young as ten years old — when she physically restrained a special needs student, holding him face down with her full weight.

The boy exhibited an outburst in class after his primary teacher put him in the care of the instructor in question. Instead of meeting the boy with patience and understanding, the teacher physically pinned him to the ground. When the boy began calming down, she laid him prone on the couch, placing a bean bag across his back. She applied her whole bodyweight onto him, squeezing his diaphragm. The boy exclaimed he could not breathe, to which she responded, “If you can’t breathe, you wouldn’t be able to talk.”

The boy suffered petechiae across his face and body: tiny, painless, ruptured blood vessels underneath the skin that appear as small brown spots. While the petechiae didn’t hurt, the abusive restraint caused him physical pain and also traumatized him, inflicting an emotional and mental toll on a child with down syndrome.

His parents immediately contacted Chris Keane of The Keane Law Firm, an attorney with 30 years of experience representing abused and deceased children. Chris met with the family, got to know the boy, and strategized how he would hold the school district accountable for employing such an abusive teacher. Chris anticipated it would be difficult to link the woman’s abuse to quantifiable damages, considering the boy’s uncommon physical injury. Thus, he needed to find a solution to illustrate the physiological effects of a large amount of weight placed on a child and how it causes petechiae to occur. To get the Defense to understand and realize the ramifications of the case, he enlisted the help of DK Global to recreate the traumatizing incident and the resulting damage.

The animation began with a size comparison between the teacher and the boy, indicating an 86-pound weight difference. Next, the disturbing incident was shown: the teacher attempting to calm the boy down by forcing her weight across his back. With the help of DK Global’s certified medical illustrators, an anatomical look inside the boy's body was depicted. The compression of his diaphragm, chest cavity, and heart, resulting in limited blood flow and pressure in his cardiovascular system. The animation displays the boy’s torso twisting, making it difficult for his lungs to oxygenate his red blood cells. This led to small venous branches rupturing, resulting in hemorrhaging. With the animation in hand, Chris agreed to sit with the school's Defense attorneys and negotiate reparations for the boy’s trauma.

After lengthy mediation, he obtained a significant settlement for the boy and his family.

Chris Keane has been advocating for child abuse victims for over 25 years and is consistently rated one of the “500 Leading Plaintiff’s Lawyers in America” by Lawdragon Magazine. Chris received California's “Street Fighter of the Year” award in 2017 by CAOC after a precedent-setting Supreme Court victory resulting in the protection of all suspected abuse victims in California. A member of the Million Dollar Advocates Forum, Chris has recovered more than $60,000,000 for his clients.

When children are left under the protection of schoolteachers, we trust they prioritize safety and wellness, hoping they treat each child as their own. However, in this instance, an elementary school teacher abused the trust of the children she was supervising — as young as ten years old — when she physically restrained a special needs student, holding him face down on the floor.

The boy exhibited an outburst in class after his primary teacher put him in the care of the instructor in question. Instead of meeting the boy with patience and understanding, the teacher physically pinned him to the ground. When the boy began calming down, she laid him prone on the couch, placing a bean bag across his back. She applied her whole bodyweight onto him, squeezing his diaphragm. The boy exclaimed he could not breathe, to which she responded, “If you can’t breathe, you wouldn’t be able to talk.”

The boy suffered petechiae across his face and body: tiny, painless, ruptured blood vessels underneath the skin that appear as small brown spots.  While his physical injury didn’t hurt, the abusive restraint traumatized him, inflicting an emotional and mental toll on a child with down syndrome.

His parents immediately contacted Chris Keane of The Keane Law Firm[AS1] , an attorney with 30 years of experience representing abused and deceased children. Chris[AS2]  met with the family, got to know the boy, and [AS3] strategized [AS4] how he would hold the school district accountable for employing such [AS5] an abusive teacher. Chris anticipated it would be difficult to link the woman’s abuse to quantifiable damages, considering the boy’s uncommon physical injury. Thus, he needed to find a solution to illustrate the physiological effects of a large amount of weight placed on a child and how it causes petechiae to occur. To get the Defense to understand and realize the ramifications of the case, he enlisted the help of DK Global to recreate the traumatizing incident and the resulting damage.

The animation began with a size comparison between the teacher and the boy, indicating an 86-pound weight difference. Next, the disturbing incident was shown: the teacher attempting to calm the boy down by forcing her weight [AS6] across his back. With the help of DK Global’s certified medical illustrators, an anatomical look inside the boy's body was depicted. The compression of his diaphragm, chest cavity, and heart, resulting in limited blood flow and pressure in his cardiovascular system. The animation displays the boy’s torso twisting, making it difficult for his lungs to oxygenate his red blood cells. This led to small venous branches rupturing, resulting in hemorrhaging. With the animation in hand, Chris agreed to sit with the school's Defense attorneys and negotiate reparations for the boy’s trauma.

After lengthy mediation, he obtained a significant settlement for the boy and his family.

Chris Keane has been advocating for child abuse victims for over 25 years and is consistently rated one of the “500 Leading Plaintiff’s Lawyers in America” by Lawdragon Magazine. Chris received California's “Street Fighter of the Year” award in 2017 by CAOC after a precedent-setting Supreme Court victory resulting in the protection of all suspected abuse victims in California. A member of the Million Dollar Advocates Forum, Chris has recovered more than $60,000,000 for his clients.


 [AS1]Let’s make sure the relevant hyperlinks make it into the version which gets uploaded to Harvester.

 [AS2]Need to proofread for run-on sentences like this before posting to Ping.

 [AS3]Used “and” twice in a sentence where a comma suffices.

<span style="mso-comment-author: 'Aaron Saltzman'; mso-comment-providerid: AD; mso-comment-userid: S-1-5-21-3424144191-55685824

"What I was mostly impressed with, after we started working together, was that there was a team that carried it through from beginning to end."
Christopher Keane - The Keane Law Firm
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