In this case... don't HOP on one foot with a pencil in your hand!?
Yes. That's a pencil stuck completely THROUGH my 9 year old son's foot!
I have no idea HOW he actually did it, but his little brother came running to me, screaming that it was serious! I dropped what I was doing and ran up the stairs and couldn't believe my eyes! All I could think was "OMG!! What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?! ...Crap! I didn't read that section of the baby and childcare book!!! "
I was trying not to panic while my child was screaming in pain and begging me to make it stop. My first instinct was to pull it out. I ran back downstairs, got my husband to call 911, and grabbed a towel because I knew there would be blood... and as I ran back upstairs flashbacks of episodes of ER and Grey's Anatomy were playing in my head... I could hear Merideth Grey, "when we pull this (whatever it was) out, this person is going to 'bleed out'..."
I sat there holding his foot in my hand, and noticed there was NO BLOOD... not even a drop coming out of either of the holes...and I wasn't prepared to open up an artery on the playroom floor. So I realized I would just have to calm him (and myself) down and wait for the EMTs to arrive. I could hear my hubby on the phone downstairs with 911 yelling up to me "Don't pull it out! Don't pull it out!" I said, "Okay...I'm not going to... get the camera".
The EMTs arrived, splinted the pencil in place, and carried my poor baby out to the mini-van and laid him on his stomach in the middle row of seats with his foot in the air. We had a nice crowd of observers gathering at the sight of the big red fire engine in the cul-de-sac. Then we waived goodbye to our neighbors and drove him to the ER. The ER doctor gave him a shot of morphine and then pulled it out with a PAIR OF PLIERS!! Unbelievably, it still didn't bleed! They cleaned it, irrigated it, and put a couple bandaids on it and sent us on our way....
All I can say is OUCH!! And thank God it wasn't worse!! He's on crutches today, but doesn't seem to be in any pain unless he tries to step on it...
You can share this with your friends if you'd like to pass on the warning.
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