Knowing your child is hurt and in pain is a parent’s worst nightmare. We want the best for our kids and we always want them to be happy and healthy. But accidents happen and they’re virtually inescapable sometimes. For these traumatic times, it’s important that we know what to do, as parents when our children are hurt.
Whether it’s a car accident, a sports accident or they’ve simply been playing outside when something traumatic happens to them, it’s extremely vital that we act in particular ways to ensure that they remain in the least pain possible and that they stay alive. Here are five steps to take if your child has been injured in an accident.
As parents, it’s almost instinct that we go to hold our children when they’re in pain. We naturally want to comfort them and make sure that they’re alright, but this can be problematic. Especially if your child is involved in a more severe accident, moving them could cause breakages to worsen or could cause more pain to them overall. That being said, you should first refrain from picking them up or touching them.
The only exception to this would be if your child is in a dangerous location that’s either riddled with outside activity or they’re unconscious underwater. In these cases, you should gently move your child to the sidewalk to slowly to their back in the water. Make sure that you don’t drastically move any particular position of their body unless told to do so by a health professional or emergency expert.
The next thing you should do is call 911 or other emergency services where you live. They will likely ask you questions about what happened and may advise you to conduct certain tests to help them better understand the condition of your child. They’re trained professionals and have likely dealt with countless cases of children getting hurt, so you can trust them to know what to do.
After you call the emergency services, they may take a few minutes to get there. So you’ll want to question your child to better understand the extent of their injuries. If they’re unconscious, then you should conduct CPR. CPR stands for cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and it refers to your forcing them to breathe again and get their heart pumping. Getting them to breathe is the first and foremost important step.
If your child isn’t unconscious or you’ve finally gotten them to breathe, you’ll then want to ask them questions to better understand how they’re feeling. See if they can move their toes and their fingers. Ask them to move their legs and arms as well. If they’re unable to do so, you should definitely refrain from touching them at all, as this could be a spinal or brain injury.
Also, you should ask your child to recite their birthday, ask them what day it is and what their name is. These questions can help to determine if they have any memory loss. If they can’t answer any of these questions, then this may indicate that they’ve sustained some type of brain injury. Let the emergency services know about this when they arrive (1).
One of the last things that you’ll want to do on the spot is to look for any bleeding. Finding blood on the ground or on the exterior part of any part of their body can help you to determine where exactly they’ve been hurt. You’ll want to stop the bleeding by applying pressure to the area and cleaning it with soap and water. This can reduce the risk of any infections from having an open wound, and it can reduce the overall amount of pain that your child is in.
Depending on the specific type of accident your child was involved in, you should consider consulting with a personal injury lawyer. If someone else caused the accident onto your child, then getting in touch with personal injury lawyer services can give justice to the person at fault, and it can even make the person at fault legally responsible for paying for the cost of your child’s injuries.
Seeing your child hurt is perhaps one of the scariest feelings in the world. As a parent, you’re not sure whether to hold your child and comfort them or to call 911. Knowing what to do and the order in which to do it can help to not only reduce the amount of pain that your child is in, but it can even save their life.
Katie earned a BA in English from WWU and loves to write. She also adores hiking in redwood forests and photography. She feels happiest around a campfire surrounded by friends and family.