Teachers Under Attack: Local teacher badly injured in 2023 assault shares her story

PITTSBURGH — A local teacher who was badly injured by a student is sharing her story for the first time.

After nearly 40 years working as a teacher, Linda O’Sullivan never imagined she would leave her job on a stretcher.

“I remember the first hit. He hit me and headbutted me, and then I don’t remember anything,” she said. “The next thing I remember was in an ambulance.”

It was Feb. 7, 2023. Another teacher was trying to restrain a disabled student in crisis in the hallway near O’Sullivan’s art studio. He yelled for help. O’Sullivan ran to the hall. Moments later, she was on the ground. Video of the attack, which would show exactly what happened, no longer exists.

When her husband met her at the hospital, O’Sullivan said he was horrified by the injuries she’d suffered. She still remembers one of the first things she told him.

“I’ll tell you one thing, there’s something good that’s gonna come out of this. That student is going to be properly placed and get care,” O’Sullivan said.

But the next day, the student was back in school. O’Sullivan said administrators and staff made no changes to protocol or adjustments to a safety plan.

Meanwhile O’Sullivan had suffered life-altering injuries. She had a traumatic brain injury and suffered temporary facial paralysis, permanent hearing loss and a broken jaw that has required several surgeries already with more ahead of her.

11 Investigates has been exposing the dangers teachers are facing in classroom settings as part of our ongoing series Teachers Under Attack. We teamed up with our sister stations to survey more than 8,000 teaches in 34 states.

“It’s really turning into an epidemic. That’s what really concerning. And what is being done about it? Not much,” said Adam Quatrini, attorney with Quatrini Law Group.

He said more teachers are calling his office after suffering injuries from students. He added that little can be done to try to hold school districts accountable.

Quatrini said in Pennsylvania, public school teachers cannot sue their employer if they are injured on the job.

“In the workers’ compensation system there is no hammer. You just have to hope they will change what went wrong here,” he said.

Quatrini is representing O’Sullivan in her workers’ compensation case. He said there is mounting evidence the Ligonier Valley School District failed to protect O’Sullivan, as well as other staff and students.

“The district was on notice that this was a problem and nothing was done,” Quatrini said.

11 Investigates obtained emails a substitute teacher sent Superintendent Tim Kantor five months before O’Sullivan was injured by the disabled student.

The substitute wrote “There is one student’s behaviors I have concerns about that I feel you need to be made aware of because of liability issues it could cause the district.” She followed up with several examples of the behavior, including that the boy threw books and hit another student and slapped the substitute on the chest and across the face.

Two weeks later, after filling in as a substitute again, the woman sent a new email. This time she said the student slapped a teacher, hit a student on the back of the head, pulled a staff member’s hair and slapped the substitute in the face.

O’Sullivan said the student at the center of those emails is the same one who assaulted her, leaving her seriously injured.

She later learned the school district had not saved the surveillance footage of her attack.

“When I was told that, it was like ice water in my face. I couldn’t breathe,” she said. “It took me weeks to recover from being told that they allowed that video to be recorded over.”

She also learned weeks later that police were not called to the school building after she was assaulted and there was no police investigation.

She has personally contacted the police department, school board members and local lawmakers to ask them to look into what happened to her and how other staff members are being put in harm’s way.

11 Investigates reviewed the district’s memo of understanding with the local police department, which shows the district’s policy is to notify police if an aggravated assault occurs on school grounds. It is unclear why the policy was not followed.

Superintendent Kantor declined 11 Investigates’ request for a sit-down interview. He wrote in an email “the safety of our teachers and students is one of our top priorities. We strive to implement safety measures and protocols to address the needs of our buildings and district.”

O’Sullivan retired earlier than expected due to the injuries she sustained in the attack.

“There was a lot of last moments that were taken from not only myself but my students,” she said through tears.

Physically, her doctors do not believe she will ever be the same.

O’Sullivan said she is very concerned about the safety of teachers and staff in the district she worked, as well as across the county. She is also concerned that districts are not providing special needs students with the resources needed to keep them and the staff members teaching them safe from harm.

“It seems like it’s a national crisis,” she said. “My greatest hope is people will see this and then they will be forced to make the changes that they morally should have made.”

Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts.

Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW

©2024 Cox Media Group