Lutheran Peace Principal Speaks out: ‘Cairns community helped us recover’ from alleged stabbing

Peace Lutheran College Principal reveals what happened after alleged stabbing of teenager Melody Neal.

Peace Lutheran College Principal Shane Jurecky says the school has become ‘more resilient’ after ‘an obviously tragic event’.

Peace Lutheran College Principal Shane Jurecky has revealed what happened the day Melody Neal was allegedly stabbed in the grounds and says the kindness of the Cairns Community has helped the school bounce after the attack.

The college is “usually such a calm and gentle place,” he said. “It was just surreal”.

The school, one of the state’s best-performing, sits in a valley surrounded by lush, jagged mountains with beds of fragrant flowers and bird-song at every step.

Yet on May 16, it was also the scene of an allegedly horrific incident when 18-year-old Melody was allegedly stabbed repeatedly by a fellow student while she was enjoying a mid-morning recess break.

Melody Neal, 18, was the victim of an alleged school stabbing in May at Peace Lutheran College.

When she arrived at the hospital, doctors thought they could not save the intelligent, talented artist and graphic designer, who was unconscious for four weeks after the alleged attack.

Melody had half her liver removed, was placed on dialysis, and suffered haemorrhaging.

It was feared she would not walk again because she was left with a hole in her spine.

Mr Jurecky said a group of staff members had just finished a meeting and were walking into the scene of the alleged attack when it occurred.

He said some staff attended to Melody, others attended to students who had seen the incident, and another group isolated the alleged perpetrator and sat with him in a classroom.

Mr Jurecky said the next day the school flew in counsellors from the Sunshine and Gold Coast..

“Then we were flooded with gift cards, flowers, and chocolates”, mainly from the Cairns community after the event, he said.

Police cars outside Peace Lutheran College in Cairns after the alleged attack.

“There was a real sense the community was supporting us”.

He said that helped the school recover from the alleged incident and re-focus on the future.

“It’s happened, so it is really about how we respond to that – with forgiveness, with an understanding that these things can happen, and how we move forward,” Mr Jurecky said.

“It became all about how we best respond to this.

“I think we now have become more resilient. Things that we used to consider a nine or a 10 on the catastrophe scale now seem more like a four or a five”.

He said some students were still “processing,” and several first responder staff members had to take considerable time off.

“We feel very humbled that our teachers, our families, and the wider Cairns Community reached out to us in our time of need and gave us the support, encouragement, and care that was needed at that time, so now we are well placed to do the same for them when or if the time comes,” Mr Jurecky said.

“If somebody else experiences a traumatic event, we will be there for them with whatever they need”.

He has had several conversations with Melody since the event, including at a special morning tea at the school where she thanked the first responders.

Melody is “very focused on finishing her QCE, and we are making sure we have all the supports in the place for that”, he said.

Originally published as Lutheran Peace Principal Speaks out: ‘Cairns community helped us recover’ from alleged stabbing