Publications
Partners
After reading the story of this mom's trip to the emergency room after a trampoline accident left her toddler son with a broken leg, Debbie could not resist sharing the traumatic experiences of her rather accident-prone sons.
She describes a few touch and go moments where you almost imagine this is it for the boy, but the ending is good: we promise!
Read her unbelievable story below:
My eldest son was always falling onto his arm after learning to walk and I, a very young mother, would take the screaming child to the doctor to check him out, only to find he was absolutely fine.
After 6 or 7 episodes of this, I was visiting my mother when he was 18 months old, and he fell off her bed and again hurt his arm. We were moving house the next day, and I just rubbed it and kissed it better.
I left him with my mom while we moved house and 2 days later when I went to fetch him, mom told me she was worried as when she pulled him up by his arm after changing his nappy, he would cry that his arm was sore.
I promptly took him to the doctor to find that he had a greenstick fracture! Horrors! The one time he actually broke his arm I had left him for 3 days before having it seen to!
Because he was so small, the driver could not see him
However, the real trauma happened 7 or so years later, when my youngest son was only 2 years old.
He and his older brother were playing in the yard one afternoon, and the younger one ran in front of the swing where his brother was swinging, and the swing hit him on the head.
He had a blue egg on his forehead, but he seemed fine after calming down.
About an hour later, a visitor was reversing out of the yard, and the 2-year-old stepped behind his car. Because he was so small, the driver could not see him and drove over him!
He fell and went under the car, but the wheels did not drive over him. We were screaming for the driver to stop. It was this hysteria trying to get him out from under the car where he was stuck.
His father managed to pull him out and tried to put him down, but his legs just buckled. I was hysterical, thinking his back was broken, but he just didn't want to be put down, but wanted to be comforted.
We took him off to the doctor where, besides the blue egg on his forehead from the earlier swing incident, he was absolutely fine. The doctor gave me something to calm me down.
Also see: How bad is the boo boo? Or 'The day I broke my toddlers leg'
The clink of the chain warned that the dog was running towards my son
The next morning, his father feeling very protective, took him with to see a client at a local scrapyard. While they were chatting, the toddler wandered off towards a guard dog which was chained up (he used to be released at night).
There were signs up all over that this was a vicious dog, but his father lost focus for a couple of minutes, and the next thing, the clink of the chain warned that the dog was running towards my son. His dad ran over as fast as he could.
The dog had his jaws over the little one's head and was busy trying to get a grip on him. His dad kicked the dog flying and grabbed our son and yanked him away.
The dog jumped up and ran back towards them and managed to nip our son on the back of his hand before he came up short on the chain and his dad managed to pull him out of reach.
You can imagine the doctor's reaction when he was then immediately taken for the small puncture wound on his left temple from the initial bite, and the light skin wound on his hand: "Wasn't this the child I saw late yesterday afternoon after having been run over by a car and being hit on the head by a swing?"
They managed to reattach the toe...
I would say that we were probably lucky for not being reported to social welfare! At that stage, all we wanted to do was wrap him in cotton wool and keep him in a box until he was 18!
We were so fortunate that he came off so lightly from these 3 incidents.
We did find that he was rather accident-prone over the years, from stitches in his foot to his front tooth being knocked out by a swingball bat and, when he was 15 years old, he cut his big toe off at his dad's workshop when a piece of metal rolled off a forklift and sliced right through it.
He should not have been there without safety shoes, but it happened. They managed to reattach the toe, and he is no worse for wear today except for having lost a toenail. He is now 33 and still going strong!
- Mom Debbie
Chat back:
Share your story with us, and we could publish your mail. Anonymous contributions are welcome.
Read more:
"My kid bumped his head!" When you should seek medical attention
How bad is the boo boo? Or 'The day I broke my toddlers leg'
