A Brooklyn eighth-grade girl was hospitalized with burns after a boy set her hair extensions on fire in a schoolyard Tuesday, authorities said.
The Department of Education said the boy and girl were outside I.S. 68 in Canarsie when the boy, a sixth-grader, took a lighter from his pocket and lit the girl's extensions. A student who witnessed the attack said it appeared the two were horsing around when the girl's hair was set ablaze.
"He wrapped his arms around her and opened the fire and her hair just -- it was just on fire. It was big, it was crazy," said 13-year-old Malcolm Joseph, an eighth-grader at the school.
Joseph said the boy began hitting the girl over the head with his bookbag in an attempt to put out the flames but it appeared to make it worse.
"It was like flames, like real flames," said Joseph. "Her hair was just decreasing."
A park worker rushed over and threw a bucket over the girl's head, Joseph said. The girl's scalp appeared to be burned, and she was crying as ambulance and emergency responders arrived.
The girl was taken to Staten Island University Hospital's burn unit and is in serious but stable condition.
