Barnack Primary School caretaker and music teacher tell inquest what happened after Stamford boy Benedict Blythe had an allergic reaction
A school caretaker and a visiting music teacher were involved in trying to save the life of a pupil who suffered a fatal allergic reaction.
Carl Urlwin had worked at Barnack Primary School for only a few weeks when he and other members of staff attempted to help five-year-old Benedict Blythe.
Through a statement read during the boy’s inquest at Peterborough Town Hall this afternoon (Tuesday, July 1), jurors heard that Mr Urlwin was litter-picking in the school grounds when he received a call on his walkie-talkie asking him to go to the reception classroom to clear up after a child had vomited.
Mr Urlwin recounted approaching the classroom from the internal corridor and seeing the playground door open in front of him and class teacher Jenny Brass comforting a little boy outside.
While he was cleaning up the vomit with paper towels and disposing of it in an outside bin, Mr Urlwin recalled Miss Brass telling him to “get Amy” - the headteacher Amy Jones - and he ran to her office.
Having raised the alarm and hearing about the need for a defibrillator, Mr Urlwin ran to Barnack Village Hall, a distance of about 150 metres from the school, and phoned a number on it to access the device. He then ran back to the school carrying the defibrillator about five to 10 minutes later.
While other members of staff continued resuscitation, Mr Urlwin opened the school gates to give the emergency services access and left the school when they had gone.
When Mr Urlwin returned later in the day for the second half of his split shift, he was told that Benedict had died.
Dave Read worked at Barnack Primary School one morning a week, teaching guitar to individual pupils. On the day Benedict died, he was teaching outside the reception classroom and became aware of what was going on.
In his statement for the inquest, Mr Read said he saw a man arrive and enter the classroom who then let out an upset-sounding yell.
“I now know that man to be Mr Blythe,” he said.
Mr Read explained to the executive head of the school, Colette Firth, that he was first-aid trained and offered to help, which she accepted.
“I knew Benedict had been sick and that staff were concerned he was choking,” Mr Read said in his statement.
“I was listening and watching for his breathing, but he was not.
“It seemed the right decision, to take over CPR, as Mr Blythe was crying. But he was not in any way doing a bad job.”
Mr Read noted that Benedict’s lips were blue when he had entered the room and that with CPR the right colour seemed to be returning to them.
He continued to perform CPR for 10 to 15 minutes, until the paramedics arrived.
Mr Read, a youth worker for six years previously, ended his statement by saying: “Everyone was working together to do the right thing. At the time the CPR felt like it was working.”
Benedict, who lived in Stamford with his parents, Helen and Peter, and younger sister Etta, died at Peterborough City Hospital shortly before 1pm that day.
The inquest, which continues this week, has heard evidence from his parents, and the consultant paediatrician who was familiar with Benedict’s food allergies.
Before his collapse, the inquest has heard, Benedict had eaten a McVitie’s gingerbread biscuit as a breaktime snack, which he had brought in from home.
A carton of oat milk, given to him at breaktime by a member of school staff, was refused by Benedict. On that day, the jury has been told, he drank water instead.
