A teenage girl and her family have started an anti-bullying group after a horrific prank sent her to the hospital.
15-year-old Hannah Combs was walking outside of Harker Heights high school when a boy ran behind her and poured a cup of super glue onto her head. Hannah started screaming as the glue immediately reacted with her scalp causing 1st degree chemical burns. Barely able to speak through the pain, Hannah was taken to the school nurse while one of her friends contacted her parents.
Christian Grimmer, Hannah’s father, could not believe what he saw when he arrived at the school. The administration had not even called the boy responsible for the attack into the principal’s office. Grimmer, a retired soldier, was furious and rightfully so. After threatening to call the police to take the boy into custody, the school administrators collected the boy while Grimmer drove his daughter to the emergency room.
Doctor’s at the hospital diagnosed her with first degree chemical burns covering her scalp. She was forced to shave part of her head and suffered excruciating pain for days after the attack. Hannah told KDH News, “I realized I lost my favorite thing about me. I loved my hair. My hair was the only thing I liked about myself, honestly. I lost it for no reason.”
When Nikki, a local hairstylist, learned what happened, she offered her services free of charge. She said “Today I got to do something I’m proud of. I fixed a young girls hair who had something traumatic happen to her at school. Her hair had to be shaved on one side, so I made the best of a bad situation.”
While Hannah started to recover, her parents contacted the school board to discuss what would happen to their daughter’s attacker. They asked for the boy to be transferred to another school, but he was simply given a few days of in-school-suspension. Hannah’s parents were furious when they discovered their daughter would have to face her attacker on a daily basis. Her father said, “I’m not going to pull my daughter out and uproot her from her life because of what this kid did to her. That child that did this to her, uproot his life. He gave up the opportunity to go to Harker Heights when he committed the act.”
When the boy returned to a regular schedule and joined Hannah in class, she was terrified. Overcome with fear, she contacted her father and asked to come home early. After confronting the principal, Grimmer was asked to leave the campus with a trespassing warning.
With no other option, Hannah’s parents took to social media to tell her story. Their Facebook post went viral overnight with an unbelievable outpouring of support across the nation. The next week her family started the anti-bullying Facebook group “Justice for Hannah” that now has more than 55,000 likes. Hannah talks about the support she has received “It makes me want to help other people.There are people who couldn’t stand up for themselves but they talk to me about it. It makes me want to help. It’s amazing how many people are supporting me.”
(image source; Facebook/Justice for Hannah)