Secure your child, please

[Rine]

Those belts in the cart aren't for decoration. For those of you fond of small children, please take warning...the following story might hurt to read.






Today at work, I witnessed a fifteen month old baby girl fall backwards out of a cart and land headfirst onto the tile floor. She was standing against the rear of the cart and simply fell backwards.

The baby opened her mouth to cry but no sound came out for a while...then she just screamed, oh...horrible, horrible scream. Those of you that have ever seen a baby get really hurt know the kind of scream/cry I'm talking about. I swear to God, the entire store came to a standstill and everyone on that floor rushed to see what happened. The mother picked the child up, tried to soothe her, took about five or six minutes for baby to calm down. Meanwhile, security comes running over, having seen it on the cameras, etc etc.

The child's eyes wouldn't focus, she seemed...all weird, so alarm bells start going off in my head. The mom was filling out a report and I'm like, "this kid needs to go to the ER."

And the mother is like, "Weeell, she's not crying anymore so I guess she's fine."

The mother didn't want us to call an ambulance and I was fully ready to. She said she would take the child herself to the ER.

I hope like hell that she did. I don't think we could have done any more to convince her that she needed to take her baby to the ER.

And then when she was gone, I went into the back and cried because all I could see was my sixteen month old niece getting injured like that. That horrible cry, the sound of her hitting the ground...you know when your heart just stops? That was one of those times.

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

I weep for that child. This is just another classic example of how parents can't be bothered to stop with what they think is important (and is usually really unimportant twaddle at *best*) to deal with what is really important.

Besides, the mother might be late for her appointment to have her toenails rotated or something and would actually have the tragic fate of having to pick up the phone and reschedule it.

Honestly I can't wait for the revolution. When society crumbles I'm going to hide in the woods until things settle down and the stupid people are either hunted down and killed or are darwined out of the gene pool.

[LingualMonkey]

Sadly, the stupid outnumber the rest of us.

[iradney]

I'm not a mother, but I don't understand how you can not be all "OMG OMG IS THERE A DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE!!?" when that happens!!

[Spork4pedro]

The other day my son split his lip when he fell while holding his bottle with his teeth. There was blood everywhere and I FREAKED.

That said if something like this happened to my son I would be unbearable (hey..I'm well aware that I'm that crazy mom and damn proud!) I can't even imagine how this woman just brushed it off!

I really hope that her baby is okay. *sniff* I'm going to go hug my baby boy now....

[Marmalady]

I am a mother, and something similar happened a couple of weeks ago at the next till to mine - the child was a toddler, rather than a baby, and he fell sideways rather than backwards, but oh the scream.... I called instantly for the first aiders who were there in a moment, but got brushed off with 'Oh he's OK, he's just given himself a scare etc etc' already heading for the door.
If that had been my boy? I wouldn't have done one thing more before getting him looked at.

[Bright_Star]

I would have called 911 myself despite what she said. Better safe than sorry.

[Pure Caitred]

I think that's the most terrifying second, the moment before they either scream or get back up and get back to whatever they were doing.
But why would you not take the kid to the doctor immediately? Hell, if a kid I was taking care of stopped screaming after they'd seriously hurt themself, I'd assume something was really wrong.

[LillFilly]

It's sad that, unfortunately, even if you call the ambulance, you can't force the parents to have the child looked at; they'll just sign a waiver. Sad sad sad. I hope you have reports, so she doesn't try to blame your store.

[Grape The Cat]

Headfirst? Oh, man that is scary, impacts to the head are not something to be taken lightly, and I hope that mom took her kid to the hospital.

[MoonCat]

The kid's eyes weren't focusing right? Means something is wrong. God, I hope she took the kid to the ER. Poor kid, what a mom to be stuck with...

[Shironu-Akaineko]

Oh lord, I remember when I witnessed it, I wrote about it years ago. Luckily I managed to throw myself under the girl before head hit ground and all she really got was a good scare, but still, all the mother did was "See? I told you it would happen!"
How did the kid fall in the first place? Mom gave the cart a sudden shove to align it to the cash register.

[blas]

My little brother and I were in daycare very briefly while my parents had scheduling conflicts with work and no one being able to babysit us after school (this was when we were probably 8 and 5).

You know those rings you can put your hands in and do flips and whatever with, usually by the monkey bars on the playground?

Well, I was pretty good at them. Until one day I lost my grip. And fell head first right onto the hard dirt and grass.

I had a concussion. It was not good.

[Eisa]

That poor little kid. That sounds so scary and painful. And yeah, if baby's eyes aren't focusing right, that is really bad.

I remember in second grade, I was running under the fireman's pole thing, and this fifth grade boy jumped off...and landed on top of me. I don't even know if I can recall all my injuries, but...both knees were scraped, both elbows were scraped, my chin was scraped, my philtrum was scraped, my nose was scraped, and I had a pretty nasty cut just within my hairline. I remember getting up and thinking I was ok...until I put my hand to my head and it came away red. Eep. The boy only suffered a scraped knee. They gave me an ice pack and some band-aids, I think. Oh, and never called my parents. My mom about suffered a heart attack when I came home that afternoon, I was covered in blood.

[RavenStarr]

Oh I hope that baby is okay. Hitting your head especially when you still have that soft spot that doesn't close until around the age of 2-3. Not to be taken lightly.