Autistic Texas teen back in hospital after bullying attack

Maddison McDonald, a 14-year-old autistic girl in San Antonio, has been readmitted to hospital after losing feeling and function in her right leg. Doctors found a slipped disc and a bulging disc in her lower back, as well as a mass on her brain the size of a gumball in her right temporal lobe, journalist Sarah Fields reported on X, citing the girl's mother.

McDonald was attacked by five girls at Sul Ross Middle School in February 2024. She was kicked in the head, neck, sides, and back, punched, and dragged by her hair. Her mother, Hazel McDonald, told the Daily Mail that the school had ignored repeated reports of bullying for the past school year, tearing up her daughter's statements and telling her to go back to class.

The school said it took swift disciplinary action in accordance with district policy and that police filed appropriate charges. Hazel McDonald said the school refused to release surveillance footage, forced her daughter to write a statement blaming herself, and did not call 911 for about an hour after the attack. The family has filed a GoFundMe campaign.