Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Associate Dean,

I am appealing for a credit standing for BIOL 210 and PHARM 100 taken in Fall 2012. The final grades I received in these courses were a D+ and a C-, the two worst marks I received in undergrad.

In the fall term of my second year (2012), I underwent an extenuating circumstance that directly affected my academic performance.

I am on the Queen's Sailing Team and was asked to travel to Virginia to compete in a regatta on the weekend of November 2nd-5th. On Saturday, the group of sailors and I decided to go to the pool after our day of sailing at the hotel. We were sitting in the hot tub and there were 8 kids playing the pool supervised by a woman coming in and out of the pool area. The kids were doing flips and nothing was said because the woman was supervising. One young boy of the age of eight did a flip into the pool and hit the back of his neck and head on the side of the pool. My friend and I are experienced sailing coaches with our emergency first aid and CPR. When we saw this happen, we got out of the hot tub and ran and pulled the boy out of the pool. I held his neck and my friend Heather performed CPR. As this was happening, yellow mucus was dripping out of his nose into my hands holding his neck and he did not start breathing again. CPR was unsuccessful. 7 minutes later when the ambulance arrived, a diffibulater was used. The 8 year old boy past away in our hands. The rest of the night until 3:30am was spent with the police undergoing investigation. The following day, the sailors and I packed our bags and drove 15 hours back from Virginia to Kingston. It was a extremely traumatic experience.

From November 5th until I was able to see my Dad on December 8th, I was in a state of trauma. I did not think of school work, tests or any of my responsibilities or commitments. I was focused on dealing with the grief from the event. I have always worked with and loved kids and this event was particularly traumatic and excruciating painful for me. I did not attend any class during this time and went to tests and handed things in to get by the easiest way I saw possible. Because of my state of shock and trauma, I had a midterm the Tuesday following the event in BIOL 210 and another on November 30th in BIOL 210 and I wrote both and did extremely poorly if not failed. My pharmacology (Pharm 100) exam written on December 7th was before I was able to see my Dad that weekend and had not attended classes for the month coming up the exam so did very poorly on this as well.

When the sailing team returned, Queen's Athletics reached out to us to discuss what happened and offered free counselling services. At the time, I was too emotionally stressed to consider the words or offers of Queen's Athletics. I took no steps to deal with the grief until I was able to visit my Dad in Toronto on December 8th. This was when I started being able to somewhat consider other things than the event's trauma. Exams in other courses of the term were after I visited my Dad and I was able to get some studying done for those ones and do alright in the other courses (DEVS 220, DEVS 230). In January, I went to a counsellor here at Queen's who helped me try to get back on my feet. I have now been seeing a counsellor and continue to discuss the impact of the event on me as a person, and in turn on my academic performance succeeding the event.

As outlined in my appeal for a late appeal, I was in a moment of pure grief and trauma and did not think to notify anyone about my struggle at the time. I did not tell many people around me what happened other than my parents and three friends because the more I talked about it, the more I had to relive the moment.

I have learned from this experience. Mostly what I have learned is how paralyzed a person becomes in the face of trauma. It was shocking to me how much I withdrew and couldn't do or say anything because this is far from my normal characteristics. I also learned to notify others when you are going through a traumatic event. In retrospect, it may have helped to have been relieved of some of the pressures from university during this time. However, I was simply not in the mental state to consider how to logically deal with the situation at hand. I have and will continue to discuss this event with my counsellor as the impact has had both knowing and unknowing consequences on me. In turn, I request an appeal for these courses because I believe the grades received directly reflect these extenuating circumstances and do not represent my academic capability.

Other Notes: I have documentation of the death of the child and emails confirming the dates of the midterms and exams I wrote if you need them. I have not been able to locate emails from Queen's Athletics but will contact them if it is something required for this appeal.