Bullying has been a hot topic for quite a few years now, yet there still doesn't seem to be anything happening in schools to help stop the bullying of young kids and teenagers.

Last week there was even a student in Walterboro, South Carolina who died a few days after being airlifted to the hospital due to a fight that occurred during class. According to the news, this 10-year-old girl was being bullied by a fellow student when a fight broke out and the other student choked her until she passed out. Following the fight, as read on the Post and Courier, the young girl, whose name I'm going to withhold, was "unconscious but still breathing" and seemed to "only suffer minor injuries," but she died in the hospital two days after the fight occurred.

There are mixed statements about what actually caused the fight (or who) and which student was actually bullying who, but at the end of the day, it's clear that something this severe should never be happening in schools -- especially among 10-year-old children. Kids should never be dying due to fights happening in middle schools, and part of me is still in shock that this actually happened.

I grew up in a small town so I had a different school experience, but I don't remember bullying ever being quite that severe when I was growing up. We had maybe one or two mean girls in high school that threatened physical violence and bullied other girls, but I've never seen something to this degree. Not to mention, this happened in a middle school, which is even harder to believe.

My point is, something like this should never happen again. This is the first time I've heard on local news about a child actually dying after (and probably because of) a fight, but "suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people, resulting in about 4,400 deaths per year, according to the CDC" and "bully victims are between 2 to 9 times more likely to consider suicide than non-victims, according to studies by Yale University." These stats are provided by the Bullying Statistics web page. This in itself is enough to make a stronger effort to stop bullying in schools. How have we continued to let this happen?

From what I've seen and heard, school officials and parents aren't doing enough to prevent or stop bullying, and there needs to be something done about this or children will continue losing their lives due to bullying.

We need to make mental health resources more available in schools, help school personnel be more aware and all of us need to actually care about the lives of these children. We have enough to worry about without also worrying if our children are going to be hurt by bullying and fights.

For more information on bullying and how to help, go to stopbullying.gov