Kevin page wonders what has happened to our emergency services that a 2-year-old child with a serious head injury can’t be prioritised. Photo / NZME
The other day I curled up on the couch with my 2-and-a-half-year-old grandson as he offered his thoughts on the amount of tomato sauce he likes to have with sausages.
I listened intently as he described his fondness for the buttered bread that wraps round the barbecue favourite – “you just squish it up with some sauce and eat it that way grandad” – rather than the snag itself.
But while chatting with the Little Bloke was certainly a half hour to cherish, I had an ulterior motive.
I wanted to get close enough to check the scar he’s been left with on his forehead following a terrible accident recently.
Now before I continue I think it’s only fair to offer up what’s known as a “spoiler alert” in my weekly warblings.
Most regular readers will know I never drift into political comment or anything too serious. This is a snapshot of the lives of myself and my family. It just so happens most of the time I find what occurs a tad amusing and so I share that with you.
But not this week. Unfortunately, this week I’m frustrated and, it must be said, a bit angry.
And this snapshot of my family’s life is anything but amusing.
So here’s what happened.
The Little Bloke and his mum (The Boomerang Child), dad (Builder Boy) and big sister (Miss Four) are in the big smoke playing at a park.
The Little Bloke has one of those two-wheel balance bikes and he’s racing around on the grass area. He’s had it a while now and he’s got quite good at it. He’s got his helmet on and all is well.
Now, as we all know, with a bit of extra confidence comes a bit of extra adventurism in kids and long story short he sets off down a slope before mum or dad can stop him.
The only thing with this slope is unseen from the top there’s a hefty metal gate – one of those single horizontal pole things designed to stop cars going through – and he hits it hard. Below the visor of his helmet and maybe an inch above his eye.
Any lower he would have suffered terrible facial injuries, maybe worse.
As it is, the force of the collision opens up a 5cm gash in his forehead. The cut is deep to the bone.
As you would expect, he is almost immediately covered in blood.
Mum and dad are there in milliseconds.
Through tears on the phone later the Boomerang Child will tell us she thought her sweet little boy was dead. He was covered in blood from his head down to his socks in his little toddler size gumboots.
At this point Builder Boy – a former soldier who has some medical training – took control, removing his own shirt to stem the flow of blood while The Boomerang Child frantically rang for an ambulance.
Now what follows is the bit that is making me angry.
For starters, the distraught mum (who wouldn’t be) was told her badly hurt little boy couldn’t be prioritised for an ambulance and they’d have to wait.
So they did. For the best part of an hour. During which time the Little Bloke continued to bleed profusely.
During that time a car pulled up maybe 20 yards away. A middle-aged couple got out. Stared at the horrific scene in front of them and then, incredibly, walked away without a word.
They would walk past again 15 minutes later as the Boomerang Child was on the phone again pleading for help from the ambulance call centre. Again the couple made no offer of help.
Luckily their indifference was not matched by two ladies from a nearby church who came rushing over to offer what aid they could, both to the Little Bloke and his distraught mum.
Builder Boy would say later as he held his son in his arms trying to stop the bleeding and keep him awake he could hear the ambulance in the distance. Each time, however, they continued elsewhere. To other priorities.
Eventually, mum and dad decided they couldn’t wait any longer and bundled the kids into the family wagon and raced to the nearest medical centre, The Little Bloke rode in the arms of his mum rather than his car seat because she was still trying to stop the bleeding.
One can only imagine the sight as Builder Boy, stripped to the waist and covered in blood, raced in holding his equally blood-soaked little boy.
The Little Bloke eventually got some medical help and a handful of painful stitches and a lot of tears later was on the way to a scar the girls will love when he gets older. At least that’s what we are telling him.
But there’s a couple of things about the incident that really irk me.
For starters, what has happened to our emergency services that a 2-year-old child with a serious head injury can’t be prioritised? Do we not have enough ambulances? Do we need to look at public funding to ensure there are?
And what sort of people are we becoming that we can simply walk on by when very plainly there’s a mum and young child in serious trouble literally in front of our noses? I hope the couple concerned read this.
Yes, I know I can be accused of being an hysterical, over-reacting grandad. I make no apologies for that.
As I say, if the Little Bloke had hit that heavy metal gate an inch or two lower from where he did you might be reading a very different snapshot of my family’s life today.