7 stitches later...........

Well, the ice-skating field trip ended with Timothy in the emergency room. He fell and hit his head on the ice putting a big gash in his forehead. He ended up with 7 stitches on the top layer and a few underneath.

I think a lot of things contributed to it. I do think Timothy was over confident and skating too fast. I had fussed at him earlier for that and he kind of admitted it later. He's been on roller skates for years and he's been ice-skating before, so he was over confident. I've also noticed that the ice there is never in really great shape. Even when we had just gotten there and it hadn't been skated on much you could see a lot of gouges and ripples and grooves. (They did resurface it immeadiately after the fall.) I also think their employees out on the ice should function more in a lifeguard type roll and not in the "let's have fun" roll. One of them was skating very fast over to the kids and doing that side-skid thing where they stop real quick and send ice flying. It was scaring the kids and chewing the ice up. None of them noticed Timothy trying to skate with blood running down his face. None of them really seemed to know what to do besides fill out an incident report.

One of the other moms with us was a nurse. She did an incredible job with Timothy. She cleaned him up and got it bandaged with pressure on it so we could get to the hospital. The hospital was incredible also. They used a numbing goop instead of the numbing shots. He watched a movie while the goop worked. While the dr. stitched, they had a child play specialist in who brought "I Spy" books for us to all do while the dr. worked. Timothy never felt a thing. Afterward, they let Timothy pick a stuffed animal and he got to pick where to give the bear stitches. The child play guy gave the bear a cut and him and Timothy used a suture kit to stitch the bear up and he got to bring the bear home.

Anyway, Timothy is doing great. He felt fine to go to soccer practice last night and had a ball. Even in the car on the way to the hospital, Timothy was negotiating for more Wii time or dinner at a restaurant. He wanted to see what this was worth.

I'm honestly surprised more kids aren't hurt. I saw some trying to learn to skate crashing the boards and ice real hard. One kid shocked me that he didn't have a bloody nose or no front teeth. I think first grade ice skating is not a good field trip. The teacher said that by this morning the story had grown quite huge about what happened to Timothy. She said there was absolute silence when he walked in and all the girls are trying to make sure that he's all right.

Marissa

 

Poor Timothy! I hope it doesn't hurt too much once the numbing stuff wears off. Getting stitches is a badge of honor for a kid (DH still talks about the ones he got in his forehead...) and the hospital sounds like a great place!

I hope it leads to some changes at the ice rink -- sounds like the employees were being pretty irresponsible. I also tend to agree with you that ice skating is not a great field trip for 1st graders. My kids have never been on skates in their lives -- maybe I'll feel different in two years, but I can't imagine trying to do it without a 1:1 ratio of adults to kids.

 

Whew! Glad he's okay! And your ER sounds awesome. I once cut open my forehead on my gma's porch & I distinctly remember seeing the needle coming for my head--nothing was done to distract me. Wish I'd had your son's drs for sure.

 

The ice center is actually getting ready to be put under new management. I'm hopeful that will help. I plan on writing a letter to the ice center in a day or two. I feel like at the time, I'll be calm enough to be polite. But the events will still be fresh enough to get right. I don't need or expect them to pay the hospital bill. I'll leave that too the insurance companies to figure out. I'm figuring it will be between the school system (field trip), ice center, and our insurance. And even if our insurance has to pay, it will totally be covered and we won't have any out-of-pockets expenses. They can sort all that out. I think the main thing I would like is the employees out on the ice functioning more like a life guard with a watchful eye for safety, including ice conditions, instead of playing.

And yes, that ER was very good. Timothy had stitches when he was 3 at a different hospital (in our old town). I'm quite thankful he does not remember that experience. They did numbing shots and didn't get him completely numb. They had me just hold him while they stitched. This time, he only knew she was doing something because the string sometimes tickled his face. She worked from behind him so just looked at the books and pointed and found things.

I also talked to the child play specialist that helped. Sarah's likely going to be having either surgery or an out-patient procedure done under general there in a couple of months. There are child play specialists for the ER, for pediatric ICU and for pediatric surgery. So, we can make sure there is someone there to distract and help her through when that comes. That was good to find out. I had been impressed and very pleased with the pediatric sedation and radiology which we had already been in.

Marissa

 

Glad he is okay!!! That sounds like an amazing ER you have! We live next to a pretty major hospital and I have yet to be super impressed with their handling of children.
Hope they figure out the ice skating rink issues. I know we have a lot of accidents at our gymnastics center and I have felt a couple time as though the coaches weren't qualified to deal with some of them. Its frustrating.

 

I was surprised when you mentioned the field trip was ice skating. To me that is not something that should be a field trip at all, especially for 6 and 7 year olds (mine were still 6 when the year ended). Glad he did well with the stitches, though!

 

I remember Alice's first stitches (I say first because she hasn't had any since, but knowing her, and knowing me, she'll end up with more) and I too was so impressed with the numbing goop!

And as a friend told me, scars give a person character, especially forehead scars.

Glad it wasn't worse!!

 

Now I'm getting mad. Yesterday Timothy had complained that the worker that was skidding to throw ice on the kids had scared him as part of the fall.

Today at school, one of the mom told me that her daughter came home saying that Timothy had hit his head on the worker's skate.

That's telling me that Timothy isn't just using the worker as a cop-out for going too fast, which he probably still was. But a worker was there very close to him when he got hurt and nobody saw fit to get anybody from our group.

I feel my blood pressure rising.

Marissa

 

Were the kids wearing helmets? My kids are in grade one also and they had a series of 3 trips throughout February to the skating rink. It was mandatory that the children had to wear helmets. There were lots of parents/volunteers around as well to supervise and kids who could barely skate, were given little "walkers" they could push around on the ice(so as to support them).

I'm in Canada, too, and live in a hockey-mad town so most kids learn to skate at a very young age.

Glad Timothy is okay though.

 

There were no helmets and none of the walkers. Most of the kids had never been on ice before and some had never been on any type of skate before. I think mine were both probably in the top 5 kids for skating ability. It's just not a real popular thing here. We haven't done much ice skating, but mine have been on roller-skates for several years. We have a large driveway. I have my own rollerblades and taught them. They are looking forward to this year, having out grown their skates, getting their first roller blades. But I make them wear pads and helmets when they're skating here at home, on the concrete.

Marissa

 

Our rink also requires helmets. I am glad he is going to be ok but I can understand why you would be upset. I hope his scar makes him distinguished, he can tell everyone he is harry potter

 

I talked more with the ice rink today. We've pieced together some of this. There were 2 employees out in the rink area. I know who both of them are. There was another guy whom I thought and the kids thought was an employee (wearing a red jacket which they told us to look for to know who was an employee), but he wasn't. He was skating around and helping some of the kids sometimes. And honestly, a 25 year-oldish looking guy hanging out at a skating rink during the day seems odd unless he's an employee. But this is the guy who was spraying the kids with ice. This is the guy that Timothy said scared him. This is the guy who was scaring others kids. This is the guy that the kids are telling me about with Timothy falling. He was looking and acting like an ice center employee, but isn't.

So I think we've got things about figured out. The ice rink is understanding why we were a bit peeve initially because someone looking/acting like an employee was bothering the kids and probably contributed to Timothy's fall. Joe and I are happy to know it wasn't an employee. And Timothy understands that he needs to slow down.

I do plan to send an email to the teachers to let them know it wasn't an employee involved and they can correct the kids if it comes up.

Marissa

 

Glad he's ok ! We had our first experience with stitches this year and it was pretty scary. It's too bad the field trip had to end that way.

 

I'm glad it wasn't an employee as well. I'm also glad your ER experience wasn't so bad. One of my 5 year olds split his cheek open (right on the cheek bone under and slightly to the side of his left eye) a couple weeks ago and we had to go to the ER for stitches. They put the numbing goop on but didn't return for about 3 hours. When they put the stitches in, it was awful. I think he felt every bit of it. His eyes were covered so he couldn't see anything, yet he screamed as soon as the needle touched his face and screamed even more when they were pulling the thread through (his whole body was shaking with pain and another nurse had to come in to hold him down). It was awful and I'm actually really glad to hear a more positive experience with that stuff recounted here.

Back to your experience though. It is kind of weird that a young man that isn't an employee, nor has anything to do with a 1st grade field trip would be at the rink. Did the school not have the rink reserved for just them? And if this man was behaving the way described, why didn't one of the two employees ever say anything to him about going too fast and doing hockey stops in front of the kids? Just wondering . . .

 

We were told the goop works best at about 45 mins to an hour. I'm betting at 3 hours it had worn off.

It was a public skating time. There were other people skating there. I was surprised we didn't have it reserved either.

I honestly think the guy was careful about how he did it. I'm pretty sure that some of the parents who weren't skating saw him. One of the times I saw him he did it to a group of girls that were huddled around the entrance to the ice, scared to go out. There were parents there staying with them. One of the employees wasn't even on skates. She was watching from halfway down the rink and wouldn't have been able to see that very well. The other guy was out on skates standing at the end by the entrance, but usually facing out watching most of the rink. I noticed him doing it mostly down in that blind spot. Out where the employees could see him, he was more helpful to the kids. And he was wearing a red jacket which is what we had been told to look for in an employee.

Marissa

 

Oh my goodness. Poor Timothy. How scary. So glad he's ok And it wasn't worse. Sending hugs and get well wishes your way. :hug: