Practical Emergency Care

Several years ago I took my youngest son to a camp out at a lake near Wheatland Wyoming . The occasion was a birthday party for one of his friends. The kids were having a good time with go-carts, little motorbikes and fireworks. As luck would have it the birthday boy got a big cut in his leg. He was screaming that he was going to die and to let him die. While his leg was cut to the bone there was almost no bleeding.

Here is where it became most interesting.

Most of the parents were employees of a large company that is strong on all aspects of safety. In short these folks had plenty of training in hazard analysis and what to do in an emergency. The only problem was they apparently did not think it applied outside of work. Even at work most of them had never seen anything really go wrong.

It seemed no one had a first aid kit. One mother had brought a box of band aids. That was nice but dressings should be larger than the wound.

No one knew the location of the nearest doctor or hospital. There was discussion of possibly driving to Cheyenne to the hospital.

The child was still screaming and wanted no one to touch him.

I calmly told the father how to get to the Platte County Hospital in Wheatland and suggested that he could just go alone with the boy. The hospital was at most 10 minutes away. He went and soon returned with his son's leg stitched, dressed and bandaged. He also had noted that the hospital seemed to have plenty of emergency room business from lake patrons.

We did do one thing wrong at the time of the incident. Generally a wound should be cleaned, dressed and bandaged. In this case, with the hospital close by, no bleeding and the child in a panic it seemed best to deal with it all at the hospital. I left my first aid kit in my truck.

Meanwhile the children continued to ride in the dark and fireworks were in use all over the camp. Fortunately no one else was injured.

The next day the birthday boy was in the water with his bandaged wound getting soaked. There were numerous sunburn injuries. There was much fun with a jet ski going round and round the swimmers.

 

 

 

 

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