Scream Bloody Murder At The Sight Of Blood
Canada, Daycare, Ontario | Healthy | December 11, 2017
(My son is 18 months old. I am planning on entering him in daycare and returning to work. I check around, and choose a daycare in part because of the above and beyond training the staff all have, including comprehensive (instead of emergency only) first aid training, annually. About three weeks after I enroll him, I get a call at work from a frantic daycare worker, who speaks perfect English, despite what happens next.)
Worker: “Your son was climbing on a chair and fell. He hit his head quite badly. There is a lot of blood coming out of his ear, and he hasn’t moved in 15 minutes!”
Me: “Is he talking or doing anything!”
Worker: “No, he hasn’t done anything at all since he fell. Maybe you should come pick him up.”
Me: “Call an ambulance. That’s very serious. Call right away. I’ll be there soon!”
(I throw my keys at my boss, barely tell him that my son is hurt and I have to go, run out of work, and drive like an idiot, all while picturing the most horrible things, and arrive just as the ambulance gets there. The ambulance attendants and I rush inside to find my son calmly lying in a staff member’s lap, getting read to, trying to reach up and grab the book closer to himself. When he sees me he gets up and runs over to me, gabbing away the whole time. The staff member I talked to originally turns to me and the ambulance attendants.)
Worker: “That’s the first time he’s gotten up since he fell. He’s been lying in her lap reading books for the last half hour. We checked him over and he’s nicked his earlobe, which HAS bled quite a lot. That’s why I thought his mom should pick him up, but she insisted I call the ambulance, so I thought I better comply. Lawsuits, you know.” *stupid giggle*
(The ambulance attendants were extremely disgruntled to be called out for something that clearly wasn’t an emergency of any sort, and the worker keeps trying to blame me (‘New parents! Always overreacting to normal childhood bumps and bruises. Insisted I call an ambulance, etc.’) I may have lost it a little bit, yelling at her that her wildly inaccurate description of his injuries is why I insisted on her calling the ambulance, and that she had caused not only a huge waste of time for emergency services, but also extreme anxiety for me in her effort to make the story seem more interesting, or whatever her problem was.)
|