Bullying is an everyday occurrence in schools across America and has been a serious issue for countless years. However, it was taken to a new extent when Kyler Nipper, a 6th grader at Carmel Middle School in Colorado Springs, was stabbed with a pencil multiple times by a fellow student on October 7, 2016.

After Nipper was evaluated by the school’s health technician, it was decided that he was not in “imminent danger” and an ambulance was not necessary to be present; when his parents were contacted, however, they decided to take Nipper to a local hospital to seek further attention.

Soon after arriving at the nearby hospital, Nipper was then transported to Colorado’s Children’s Hospital in Denver, Colorado. He was then rushed into trauma surgery to repair a punctured lung, which led to a temporary breathing tube and a long weekend in the hospital.

Following the stabbing and Nipper’s recovery, the boy and his family held a shoe drive that provided more than a dozen people with pairs of shoes that were donated. Even before the horrific incident, Nipper was organizing an anti-bullying program called “Kyler’s Kicks.” The project works to prevent kids from being bullied for the kind of shoes they wear.  

According to The Gazette, the boy’s father said that, “He’s being a positive role model even after being bullied. He’s setting an example for other people to be more kind, especially the kids who are doing the bullying,” Nipper said.

Although nothing had reached the magnitude of the fight that put him in the hospital, Nipper had been bullied before for wearing shoes that were considered “out-of-style.”

Mrs. Thompson, a science teacher at Lewis-Palmer High School, is surprised and disheartened by the incident. “It just makes me sad that bullying is still a thing and that it is still going on. Sometimes, I don’t think bullies know what they are really doing,” Thompson said.

Because of his own experiences with bullying, Nipper hopes to continue Kyler’s Kicks and host more shoe drives in the near future to help further improve the bullying situation at his school and across the nation.