Boy found hanging from hook at school

AUSTIN, Texas, Feb. 1 (UPI) -- Police in Austin, Texas, were trying to find out how a 7-year-old boy at a charter school became suspended from a hook, leaving him in critical condition.

A teacher found the boy Wednesday, a few minutes after he was excused from an assembly to use the bathroom. He is a student at the Magnolia McCullough campus of Nor Your Ordinary School.

At a news conference Thursday, police Lt. Mark Spangler said that the boy was hanging by his shirt and that his pants had fallen down. The shirt cut off his air supply, possibly causing a heart attack.

"It was not impossible for him to have gotten up there by himself," Spangler said. "We aren't ruling anything out and we aren't ruling anything in."

The boy was wearing loose pants that might have fallen down on their own, he said.

Police said that they weren't able to question children on Wednesday because school had been dismissed for the day by the time investigators arrived.