The death of a Saudi Arabian university student sent thousands into a social media outrage on Thursday. The backlash was from reports that staff at all-female King Saud University prevented male paramedics from entering a women's-only campus to treat the woman.
The woman, who suffered a heart attack on Wednesday, eventually died, the Associated Press reported.
The Saudi Arabian newspaper The Okaz reported that school officials at King Saud, located in Riyadh, barred paramedics from entering the women's campus because national rules dictate men and women are supposed to be separated in schools.
The university's rector said the woman, Amna Bawazeer, had a heart attack and collapsed on school grounds. A staff member who wished to remain anonymous told the AP that at first paramedics were not granted passage to the campus, sending the female university dean into a panic.
School officials stalled paramedics up to an hour, The Okaz reported, according to the AP.
"We need management who can make quick decisions without thinking of what the family will say or what culture will say," Aziza Youssef, a professor at King Saud, told the AP.
Youssef and other professors called for an investigation into Bawazeer's death. Others took to twitter to express their resentment, saying the Saudi Arabian kingdom's mandate that men and women be separated brought about the woman's death, the AP reported.
Islam is strictly applied under the law in Saudi Arabia, resulting in men and women having to be separate in public places like universities and restaurants. The government claims desegregating the sexes will jeopardize female chastity, the AP reported.
The university's rector, Badran Al-Omar, denies the school prevented paramedics from entering the female campus. Al-Omar said school health administrators were called right after Bawazeer collapsed.
"They called the ambulance at 12:35 p.m. and ambulance staff was there by 12:45 p.m. and entered immediately. There was no barring them at all. They entered from a side door," Al-Omar told the AP.
Al-Omar also told the AP that Bawazeer's father said she suffered from heart problems.
