“I said, ‘Get help, please,’ and the students were like deer in the headlights. They were as shocked as I was,” Rob Gooding tells Inside Edition.
A 75-year-old substitute teacher is looking to press charges after he says he was assaulted by a student.
Rob Gooding came out of retirement to take a job as a substitute teacher at a high school in Indiana.
Gooding says he was attacked by a student who stood 6 feet 2 inches tall and weighed 280 pounds.
“I said, ‘Get help, please,’ and the students were like deer in the headlights. They were as shocked as I was,” Gooding tells Inside Edition.
Gooding says the attack was “extremely” painful. He says he does not know why the student hit him.
“He was a special-ed person they were trying to mainstream back into the classroom,” he says.
Gooding is one of America’s 1.5 million seniors who have “unretired.”
He came back into the workforce at the age of 66 because he was bored.
Gooding’s ordeal echoes a notorious Florida assault when a 6-foot-6, 270-pound special-needs student attacked a teacher’s aide after she took away his electronic game device. That teacher, Joan Naydich, spoke to NewsNation’s Ashleigh Banfield.
“Every day is a challenge. I sustained broken ribs,” Naydich said.
Gooding says the student who he says attacked him has not been charged.
The local prosecutor’s office says “This matter is still under investigation.”
“I was assaulted. He should have, in my opinion, been arrested that day,” Gooding says.
The school system says a police report has been forwarded to the prosecutor’s office, which will make a decision about whether the student will be criminally charged.
