Story By: John Feng, Sub-Editor:  Joseph Golder, Agency: Asia Wire Report

AsiaWire

A teacher who was left in a coma after one of his pupils bashed him on the head with a brick nine times has died in hospital, his family have revealed.

Huang Tao, who was in his 30s, succumbed to complications related to his serious head injury and was pronounced dead at around 10pm local time on 14th February.

Mr Huang, who taught at Renshou County Chengbei Experimental Junior High School, which is in south-western China’s Sichuan Province, had been comatose for nearly four months following the attack by his teenage pupil on 24th October last year.

Harrowing footage showed Mr Huang entering his classroom and having just put down his things when his 15-year-old pupil, surnamed Yan, begins hitting him on the head with the red brick as classmates watch in stunned silence.

Other children in the class eventually intervened, preventing Mr Huang from suffering fatal injuries on the day.

The father-of-two, who reportedly taught in the rural county in order to give back to the hometown where he grew up, is said to have lectured and punished his pupil for riding a bicycle on campus the same morning.

Yan was unhappy with the discipline, county education officials later revealed.

Mr Huang remained in “serious but stable condition” at the local Yunchang Hospital until he was transferred to the larger West China Hospital in provincial capital Chengdu on 8th November.

However, he never regained consciousness while in intensive care, and his condition worsened until he finally passed away last week, family members told local media.

News of the teacher’s death has once again led to members of the public calling for the harshest possible punishment for Yan, including the death penalty.

Unconfirmed reports said the teenager had already been sent to a correctional facility, but there was no official announcement at the time of writing.

Minors under the age of 18 are exempt from criminal law except in serious cases involving murder, rape, arson, robbery or drug trafficking, for which children as young as 14 can be prosecuted.

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