A Painful Accident

 Monday was Martin Juther King Jr Day, and the kids were home from school. At one point, I sent them outside to play, thinking that it would be healthy for them to spend some time running around out there instead of staring at a screen inside. Silly me.

After a little while I heard the sound of screaming from outside. This isn't a rare occurrence, so I didn't react immediately, waiting to see if it would stop quickly. It didn't. Peter came inside clutching his hand tightly, crying very loudly, and Joshua followed on his heels protesting that he didn't know Peter's finger was in the way. Calmly, I looked at Peter's finger, noticed a cut, and got a damp paper towel - the closest thing I had available to press on the cut and stop the bit of blood while I tried to hear the story over Peter's screaming.

Josh had been hammering with rocks, lifting them high and then bringing them down, hard, on a larger rock. Somehow Peter's finger got in the way of the hammer and got smashed between the rocks. It was about this point in the story, that I realized that my hands that were holding Peter's hand while pressing firmly on the cut on the top of Peter's finger, had blood dripping on them. What?

Gently I turned his hand over, and that was when I saw it. On the palm side of his finger, the skin had torn back leaving a big, ugly gash. Peter had yet to stop screaming, and so while gently altering my position in order to stop the bleeding on both sides of his finger at once, I concentrated my efforts on calming him down, reminding him to breath (breathe in, breath out...), suggesting that he lay his head down on the table, using his other arm as a pillow. The bleeding soon stopped and we were able to wash it.

The thought crossed my mind that he might need stitches, but Steven had the car at his contract job a 45 minute drive away, and I didn't know off the top of my head who I could call who could give us a ride to a doctor, and with Peter still very upset, I felt like I needed to be comforting him rather than calling around. Another thought might have been super glue, but I had no idea if we had any around - I hadn't seen any in a while so I thought not. After looking at the cut again, I started rationalizing - it didn't look all that deep, maybe 1/8 inch at most, and it was only about 1/2 inch long, it was just the top layers of skin that had been pulled back, white and wrinkly that make it look so awful. So, we found a large band-aid, squeezed some antibacterial ointment on the pad, and wrapped it securely around both sides of the finger, pressing the adhesive tabs together and then taping them down with medical tape. I took Peter back to my room to lie down where I could sit next to him and help him stay calm when the blood started throbbing in his finger, and before long he had fallen asleep.

We've changed the band-aid a few times since then. It doesn't look infected and I think it is healing. Because I didn't take him to get stitches, he will probably have a scar on his finger. I hope he isn't too upset about that when he's older. Maybe he'll think it is cool. I don't know. I'm glad I know what I do about first aid, but it is hard sometimes to stay calm and think things through clearly when my child is screaming. It really was an ugly gash to look at. Aren't you glad I drew pictures instead of posting photos?