Thursday, January 31, 2008

Accidental death....

I heard about this one case from one of my classmates, who also works in an ED. This is an incredibly sad story. For privacy purposes some of these elements have changed.

A family of a 2 year old were in the living room. Mom was on an elliptical machine, Dad was nearby on the computer, and their 2 year old was on the couch. Child manages to get off the couch, but in the process falls into the elliptical, which was still being used by Mom, and gets crushed. Mom immediately stops, gets off, and then calls 9-1-1.

Child ends up dying.

I cannot imagine what it must be like to lose a child. I can't even fathom how someone must feel who had unintentionally caused their child's death. My sincerest condolences to this family.

This is a fear I have, working in the ED. I have fully admitted I"m not a fan of paediatric nursing, however I am coming around and learning to step up to the challenge. The idea of having to work on a child who was severely injured makes me sick to my stomach. I can't imagine how the staff felt that day, and how they could go back to working on the sore throats, injured hands, etc that we generally get in Emerg.

Blows my mind.

1 comment:

Jennifer said...

This one really touched home! Last weekend a friend of mine ran to get a towel when her 3 year old and 8 month old were in the bathtub. The three year old accidentally knocked the 8 month old over in the tub. The mother didn't know how to do CPR, and the baby died. I just can't imagine their sorrow and loss.

I don't look forward to my pedeatric rotation and seeing these sort of things on a regular basis :-(