Boy Dies While Singing In Music Class

A 14-year-old boy collapsed and died while singing “I Believe I Could Fly” in music class.

Eighth-grader Ian Hawkins was standing in front of a microphone Monday singing the theme song from the movie “Space Jam” when he put his hand to his head and collapsed at I.S. 148 in the Bronx, officials said.

Paramedics found him in cardiac arrest and he was pronounced dead a short time later at a hospital, officials said.

“It’s unspeakably sad,” said Chiara Coletti, a Board of Education spokeswoman.

“This was an apparently perfectly healthy 14-year-old boy,” she said.

Ian, who moved from Mobile, Ala., two weeks ago, appeared weak and dizzy in front of the microphone, classmate Ebony Rubino said.

“We were telling him to get up and sing, but he was breathing really hard on the microphone,” she said.

“He was weak and his eyes started to roll back and he buckled.”

Ian had no known medical problems, but his mother, Elizabeth Vassel, said doctors told her him might have had a stroke or an aneurysm.

“He was the best kid in the world,” Vassel said, “the kind of kid all mothers would want.”