Lanyards are being banned by schools across the province after a Grade 3 student was critically injured by one.
Alberta’s Education Minister has issued a directive that will ban the use of lanyards after the young student was found unconscious in the bathroom of Bearspaw School, which is near Calgary.
The student’s lanyard had caught on a cubicle door and reports say staff performed CPR until EMS arrived.
The boy is in stable but critical condition at the Alberta Children’s Hospital in Calgary.
“This appears at this time to be a tragic, tragic accident,” RCMP Cpl. Darrin Turnbull said.
“We've already sent out directions to every school board across the province to suspend the use of similar lanyards like this,” Minister Jeff Johnson told media Friday.
Although Edmonton’s public school board could not say how many schools use lanyards about one-third of the city’s Catholic schools do so.
“We’ll definitely have to look at other ways of identifying students whether it’s a name badge or that they carry a pass in their hands,” Spokesperson Lori Nagy told CTV News.
Nagy explained that the passes were used in high schools to keep track of the students while elementary schools use them as passes to allow children trips to the washroom or library.
“We are following the minister’s lead and the superintendent will be sending out a directive this week to principals to ask them to suspend using lanyards,” she said.
“We’ll be researching other methods in case this is a permanent situation.”
With files from Amanda Anderson
