A is for Accidents

Welcome to my posts for the A to Z Challenge 2016.

This year, I am posting 

Special School Stories

 tales from either my time as a teacher or teaching assistant within classrooms in the U.K. or from my own school days growing up around the country

Miss Burgess ran through the door into the classroom and shouted, “I need help! There’s been an accident.”

I went outside to find the teacher on duty standing, white faced with one of the year 3 pupils lying on the ground her head bleeding profusely into a wodge of paper towels. 

“She just ran into the edge of the open door,” he stammered.  “What should I do?”

“Get me another load of paper towels and find a First Aider,” I said kneeling on the floor beside the child’s head and taking off my cardigan. “It’s alright, Tina, you’ve just had a bit of a bump.  Let’s make you a bit more comfortable.” 

I started to peel back the paper towels soaked in blood by the side of her head to check for dirt and foreign bodies but realised that there was an entire flap of skin lifting away.  I re-applied pressure and told the children who were now flocking around Tina to step back and asked the older ones to form a barrier so that we had space.

“How do you feel, Tina?” I asked.

“My hair’s getting dirty,” she snivelled.

“Don’t worry about that,” I retorted “let’s keep you a bit warmer” as she shivered. I sat at the top of her head and put my legs either side of her with my cardigan over her body as the other teacher came back with more paper towels.

“You need to ring for an ambulance and ring Tina’s mum,” I said as he passed them to me.  Off he went again and I placed more paper towels over the blood soaked ones.

“I just think we need your mum to know you’ve been hurt, Tina and I think I would like a doctor to check you out too,” I said reassuringly to her.

Just then our headteacher came out to look at the situation. “Oh my God,” he said staring down at us his eyes wide taking in the amount of blood.

“There’s nothing to worry about, sir,” I said wishing the earth would swallow him up.  I didn’t need him making a fuss and getting Tina upset. The bell rang for the end of break.  “Would you help the children file in carefully past us?” 

“Yes, yes of course,” he replied and went about doing that before hurrying off.

The blood was continuing to seep through the new paper towels I had added but I knew the ambulance would be on its way.  I continued to chat to Tina about her dog, how brave she was being, what lesson the others in her class would be doing now and then there they were - two, towering ambulance men and Tina’s mum as well.

I quickly smiled at Tina’s mum to reassure her.  It was only at the sight of her mum that Tina began to cry and I quickly explained the situation to the guys as they assessed her.  I extracted myself off the playground floor and they placed her on a stretcher.  

Tina’s mum grabbed my hand, “Thank you.”

Miss Burgess found me having a drink in the staffroom and hugged me 

“I’m so sorry,” she said “It was only after I got you out on to the playground I realised I’m a First Aider I should have been the one out there with Tina but I just panicked and then I found you and I knew it would be OK.  You’re always so calm in a crisis.”

Which I have to admit I found very comforting if not a little surprising.  You just never know how you’ll react in a situation!

(Tina I am happy to report made a full recovery with only a slight scar left to show of her ordeal when she held back her fringe.) 

I'd love to know if you ever had an accident at school, did you have to go to hospital, can you remember the teacher who helped you, have you a scar that tells a tale?  Leave your comments below and if you're taking part in the Challenge remember to let me know your blog so I can come visit :)