BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – An Alabama fifth-grader is at home recovering from serious injuries to her rectum and private areas after she was impaled by a pole in her school’s cafeteria last week.

Around lunch time last Wednesday, the nurse at Hudson K-8 School in Birmingham called Stacy Minnifield with news that her 10-year-old daughter was bleeding from a lunchroom injury and in need of medical attention, WBRC reports.

MORE NEWS: Know These Before Moving From Cyprus To The UK

The 10-year-old girl told her mother that after she received her lunch, she went to sit at a cafeteria table but did not notice that a plastic seat was missing and accidentally sat on exposed metal pole.

“She let me know that they got into the lunchroom, she got a tray, she got ready to sit down and didn’t notice that it didn’t have a bar stool there,” Minnifield said. “She plopped down, immediately felt the pole, and that’s when she started to hurt.”

Minnifield told ABC 33 that the exposed pole “pierced her clothes, her shorts, her underwear, yeah and it pierced from the back to the front.”

Minnifield took her child to the hospital, where doctors took inventory of the gruesome injury.

“We discovered it was both rectal and towards the front area/private area,” she said, according to WBRC.

The girl is not recovering at home, and is expected to heal from the injuries, but her pain is still a 9 on a 10-point scale, her mother said.

MORE NEWS: How to prepare for face-to-face classes

“She’s hurt and it’s an embarrassment as well,” Minnifield said, according to WKRN. “For this to happen in the lunchroom as well, in front of teachers, the whole fifth-grade class, along with other classes well … it’s just a total embarrassment …”

The Hudson K-8 principal refused to allow ABC 33 inside the school to inspect the cafeteria seating, and refused to speak with WKRN at all. Birmingham City School Superintendent’s Office issued a prepared statement.

“As a result of this unfortunate incident at Hudson K-8. All cafeterias have been surveyed and all student seating is up to standards,” the statement read.

School officials made no public apology for the child’s serious injuries nor explain why the seat was missing in the first place, WKRN reports.

The principal told ABC 33 the public will have to take his word for it that the problem has been resolved.

Minnifield told the site she came forward with her daughter’s embarrassing injuries in hopes that school officials will be more proactive in preventing similar incidents in the future.

“Paying better attention, inspections done regularly, monthly, every other month, however it needs to be done so this won’t occur again,” she said.