MIRI: Yesterday’s morning session at SMK Dato Permaisuri was disrupted after more than 20 girls became hysterical following their 10am break.
QUICK ACTION: A parent (left) carries a student to the school surau. Behind him, another hysterical student is also taken by the friends to the same place.
They wept, screamed, struggled and fainted inside and outside their classrooms.
It was a chaotic scene and a hair-raising experience for many of the students, especially those who have never witnessed such an incidence before.
The victims who are mostly Form 3, 4, and 5 students cried and screamed (seemingly in great pain).
Some fainted inside their classrooms, outside the school compound, and under the sheds.
It is believed to be the first mass hysteria in the state this year.
It is also worth noting that it happened just when the PMR trial examinations started yesterday.
“This is where it started first,” a student (who declined to be identified) later pointed out to The Borneo Post.
He was referring to a Form 3 student who suddenly cried and started screaming inside the classroom.
By 12.30pm the situation was still not under control as some students sitting in the shed on their way back to school also became hysterical.
The teachers tried their best to handle the situation but in truth most of them seemed confused.
For want of better solutions to the problem, some of the victims were carried to the school surau.
A shocked father who was informed by a teacher that his daughter was hysterical said he immediately rushed to the school. He took her home to be treated by an ‘ustaz’
Hundreds of students coming for the afternoon session were shocked upon seeing the mass hysteria. They were soon told to go home for fear that they too might become hysterical.
SMK Dato Permaisuri principal, Piel Adeng, when contacted yesterday, said the school would stay open as usual.
However, students who are still jittery as well as the victims themselves can stay away from school for a while.
“We will explain the matter to the students and inform them about further action to be taken to control the situation,” he said when contacted yesterday.
It was reported that the hysteria actually started early last Tuesday. The Form 5 girl soon calmed down about 8.30am.
The history of hysteria can be traced to ancient times. In ancient Greece it was described in the gynecological treatises of the Hippocratic corpus which dated from the 5th and 4th centuries.
Timaeus tells of the wandering throughout a woman’s body, strangling the victim as it reaches the chest and causing diseases.
When contacted in Kuching yesterday, Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri George Chan Hong Nam, who is Piasau State Assemblyman, disclosed that he has yet to receive a report on the case from the Education Department.
“I will ask the Education Department and the school about the incident,” he said.