Mrs. Estrada said no one at the school told her what happened.
An Adams County mother has filed a lawsuit against 12 Adams Five Star schools, alleging her 12-year-old son with special needs suffered a leg injury while unsupervised.
Patricia Portillo Estrada told CBS News: “I don’t know if Esdras will be able to walk, if he will be able to get back to where he was. ”
“He was a very happy kid (and) optimistic. He always had a great attitude,” Patricia Portillo Estrada said. “He changed a lot until this accident happened.”
Esdras Cruz was born with various neurological and physical disorders, such as lumbar myelomeningocele, hydrocephalus, bilateral clubfoot, scoliosis, and spina bifida, but He still suffers from these illnesses. Despite this, Esdras has shown remarkable resilience and determination to overcome all obstacles, according to media reports.
“The doctors said Esdras can walk,” Portillo Estrada said in Spanish. “He’s making progress and we’re getting close to him being able to walk.”
Less than four years ago, Portillo Estrada posted a video showing her son making significant progress in walking with the help of a walker.
“He’s not the same kid anymore. He’s depressed. He’s sad all the time. He wants to be in bed alone and scared. He doesn’t want to make progress in treatment,” Portillo Estrada said .
Portillo Estrada claimed that all of these developments occurred following the incident on the morning of May 10, 2022, when her son was left unattended at Rocky Mount Elementary School.
“When I dropped him off and walked down the ramp, I saw his knee was really swollen and he looked sad,” she said. “When he saw me he started crying and I asked him what happened. He told me he had fallen at school.”
Mrs. Estrada said no one at the school told her what happened. On May 12, she sent Esdras back to school. That day, she had to take her son to the hospital in pain. There, she discovered that both of his legs were broken.
“I took him to the emergency room. When they did an X-ray on him, they found that Esdras’ legs were badly broken,” Portillo Estrada said. “They asked me what happened. Things, I said I didn’t know.”
Mrs. Estrada told the outlet her son spent two months recovering in a cast while she continued to ask the school district about what happened.
“The school told me that Esdras was lying and that he did not fall at school,” she said.
“They didn’t get a straight answer from the school,” said Igor Rekin, the family’s attorney. “In fact, the school had no idea how he was injured in the first place and even denied at one point that he was injured. In fact, it took them 22 days to even look at the incident in the video to determine what exactly caused it. .”happened. “
According to media reports, Portillo Estrada kept up the pressure until she was finally able to see video from the day of the accident.
“He was completely alone and he went down the ramp and hit the wall. All I did was cry and cry,” she said.
“One of the requirements of his special education program is that he must be constantly monitored to assist with his mobility. He should not be left alone and left to his own devices,” Rekin said.
Portillo Estrada and her family want the school district to be held accountable for her son’s injuries.
“They were responsible for Esdras’ accident and we got justice,” Portillo Estrada said.
“She wanted to make sure this didn’t happen to anyone else,” Rekin said. “This lack of supervision should never happen to any child, especially one as compromised as this particular child.”
