{"id":3082,"date":"2019-09-30T20:46:20","date_gmt":"2019-09-30T20:46:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/westernmirror.com\/?p=3082"},"modified":"2019-09-30T20:46:23","modified_gmt":"2019-09-30T20:46:23","slug":"was-it-obeah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/?p=3082","title":{"rendered":"Was it Obeah?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em><strong>Barrington Flemming<\/strong> &#8211; Staff Reporter<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>\u201cNo sah, dem obeah di pickney dem! Watch how dem a faint weh,\u201d were the words of a puzzled student of the Anchovy High School, in Southern St. James, which hastily suspended classes on Friday after several students fainted after coming in contact with a male student. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What has been described as a bizarre incident which left\nmany wondering what kind of forces were at work, began to unfold minutes into\nthe morning devotion when a male student, who was said to be a victim of\nbullying, managed to bypass the security guard with a stick and, moving as\nthough in a trance, began to wield the stick wildly, hitting several students\nduring the devotional exercise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Upon entering the school, he was confronted by a prefect who\nasked him what he was doing with the stick and he responded \u2018Move!\u2019 in a\ncommanding tone, and sidestepped him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe boy began to wave the stick and hit a number of\nstudents. Others began to panic, running all over, almost tramping themselves\nin the process,\u201done senior student shared.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Eyewitness reports are that some students ran to the nearby\nnurse\u2019s station, which was closed, and the boy, with wild-looking eyes rushed\nto the area, banging the door as though trying to force it open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A prefect confronted him, took the stick and broke it. It\nwas then that things went awry as two students fainted, followed by what seemed\na ripple effect as the scene became more mysterious, with another two students\nfainting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cFear began to wash over the school because everybody began\nto wonder about the boy and the stick, if the stick had special powers, because\nclose to 20 students fainted after it was broken.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This prompted speculation that some dark forces at work, but\nsome teachers and students shot that theory down, saying it was a panic attack.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The administration is said to have called the medics and the\naffected students were rushed by ambulance to the Cornwall Regional Hospital,\nfor assessment and possible treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Meanwhile, it is understood that a meeting of the Board of\nGovernors was hastily called to assess the situation. We have not been able to\nget a comment on the situation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Barrington Flemming &#8211; Staff Reporter \u201cNo sah, dem obeah di pickney dem! Watch how dem a faint weh,\u201d were the words of a puzzled student of the Anchovy High School, in Southern St. James, which hastily suspended classes on Friday after several students fainted after coming in contact with a male student. What has been [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3083,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1417,1573,202,59,1574,30,1575],"class_list":["post-3082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-anchovy-high-school","tag-bizarre","tag-bullying","tag-ministry-of-education","tag-obeah","tag-western-jamaica","tag-witchcraft"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3082"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3084,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3082\/revisions\/3084"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}