RELATED: Young student dies at San Rafael elementary school after playground injury
Flowers were left on the playground of Mark Day School, a private school in San Rafael, where a 7-year old boy was playing during the lunch hour on Thursday, when police say he was critically injured by a section of schoolyard fence.
"It's a manual fence on a track, we're still trying to investigate how this happened, at some point the fence came off the track and hit the boy and took him to the ground," said San Rafael Police Lieutenant, Dan Fink.
School staff rushed to remove the child from the fence and called 911, sadly he died later at the hospital.
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The school flag was lowered in memory of the little boy and made grief counselors available to students and staff Friday.
Even police and firefighters who responded to the tragedy had their own debrief.
"We're human and we have kids too, it's a horrible thing to deal with, everybody's heart is going out to the family, everybody's devastated," said Fink.
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In a statement, Joe Harvey the head of Mark Day School said: "The safety of our students is so important to all of us, and we want to understand how this could've happened. The section of campus where this occurred will be completely closed off."
At a time of holiday joy and happiness, this campus is grieving.
Parents and school staff declined to speak with ABC7 News.