Teen Faints During Middletown Graduation, Caught By BOE Members

MIDDLETOWN, NJ — The Middletown High School North graduation ceremony was briefly interrupted Thursday evening when a teenage girl fainted in the middle of the ceremony.

This happened at about 4:30 p.m. Thursday on the football field. The girl, estimated to be about 16, was singing in the chorus before the names were called.

She was standing in the back row of the bleachers.

"I don't know what made me look over there, but I look over and she's sort of nodding her head, looking dizzy and I saw her friend rubbing her back and then trying to hold her up," said Middletown school board member Harmony Heffernan. "It was very hot at that time of day. Then she just went limp."

Heffernan said he leapt up from his seat, from where he and other Board members were seated above the crowd. He said he ran over to the teen girl and caught her as she fell backwards off the bleachers.

The girl was only about four feet off the ground, but Heffernan and fellow Board member Joe Fitzgerald, who also ran over to help, both acknowledge they helped prevent a serious injury from occurring.

"The other girl next to her was trying to hold her up, but she just became dead weight and went limp," said Fitzgerald, who also witnessed the whole thing and ran over to catch the girl. "Barry got there first; he actually leapt over something. He got there really fast. He had her in his arms and I had the other side of her. I held her head, but Barry really caught her."

Board member Gary Tulp rushed over with water, as did BOE president Frank Capone to help.

The teen girl was lowered to the grass, where she was revived and given water. She was taken off the field via a golf cart. Her medical condition is unknown as of Friday. The Middletown North graduation ceremony was briefly interrupted, but then proceeded without incident.

"I think she just fainted," said Fitzgerald, a U.S. Marine. "It was really hot. The chorus had been standing for a while in the heat and singing."

Watch Thursday's graduation ceremony; it happens at about the 25-minute mark: