An 11-year-old girl now suffers from brain damage after being caught in the crossfire of a substitute teacher and another student. Cha’Kyra Thomas, a former student at Detroit’s Hope Academy elementary school, was hit with a metal hockey stick thrown by her substitute teacher meant for another student. 

The young girl told Fox 2 Detroit that the teacher, Jacqueline Brown, was angry with another student in her class. “She was yelling and doing some cussing,” Thomas said. “The next thing I know I feel something hard on the side of my head.”

Thomas was left dazed and confused, and she didn’t realize a hockey stick had hit her. 

Fox 2 reports her family plans to sue the school district, the teacher, the charter school and the staffing company that placed the substitute teacher. 

According to Atlanta Black Star, Jon Marko, the family’s attorney, rendered what happened: “Brown was filling in for a permanent teacher last May when she got angry at one of the students. In a rage, she picked up a metal hockey stick and hurled it at the child. It missed the intended target, and hit Thomas, an innocent bystander.”