Contrary to city codes, no safety fencing was in place when an 8-year-old Lawrence boy was injured in an Aug. 13 fall at New York Elementary. It has since been installed.

An 8-year-old was seriously injured Thursday morning at a construction site at New York Elementary School, 936 New York St.

The injury occurred after a babysitter had taken the child to the elementary school’s playground Thursday morning, said Capt. Anthony Brixius with the Lawrence Police Department.

At some point during the child’s playtime, the child “wandered into a construction area,” Brixius said. There, the child fell and suffered a traumatic head injury.

Emergency responders requested the assistance of Life Star air ambulance, which landed at Hobbs Park shortly before 10 a.m., Brixius said. The child was then taken to Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Mo., according to scanner traffic.

New York Elementary has been an active construction site for “more than a year,” after the April 2013 passage of a $92.5 million bond issue for “facility improvements, technology enhancements and the expansion of career and technical educational opportunities,” Lawrence schools spokeswoman Julie Boyle said in a statement Thursday.

The school is a “closed campus,” Boyle said, as site work was taking place on the school’s campus Thursday morning when the accident happened.

Boyle said the district has “activated its Crisis Response Team” to offer support to those affected by the tragedy. The Crisis Response Team is a collaboration of school nurses, psychologists, counselors, social workers, mental health professionals and other district staff who volunteer to “provide counseling and emotional support to school communities as needed,” Boyle said.