3 Steps You Should Take As Soon as Possible if Your Child is Injured
Injuries are all part of growing up. If you can’t avoid them altogether, it is important to learn to act quickly and take action to seek medical attention for your child when they are injured. The fewer steps taken to treat an injury, the better for your child’s health.
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Step 1: Assess the Situation and Check for Injuries
As a parent, your first instinct to seeing your child injured may be panic, especially if the child is screaming and crying. However, you want to be level-headed so you can calmly assess the situation, and figure out how bad the injuries are, if any.
Some children simply scream and cry at any slight injury, so the decibel level of their crying isn’t always a good indication of how severe an injury is. This is why you need to keep a calm mind, so you can inspect them and ask questions if something like broken bones isn’t apparent right away.
Children will also react according to your own body language and voice. Parents who are scared, anxious or tense can also cause the child to feel nervous or afraid. You want to keep your cool and put the child at ease so they can give you a more detailed account of the incident.
Step 2: Get Medical Assistance
If the injury does indeed require medical attention, get it immediately, as the longer the child is untreated, the more severe the injury may become.
Having the ambulance, paramedic or doctor on the way helps you to stay calm and let them focus their attention on helping your child. These professionals will assess the extent of the injury and evaluate the child’s condition.
For cuts and scrapes, a clean compress should be applied to it to prevent the wound from getting infected, and a child should also be given some ice to numb any pain.
For larger wounds that incur blood loss, immediately apply pressure to the wound to stop the bleeding, and apply a tourniquet if the blood flow is heavy. A tourniquet should only be applied when the bleeding is excessive and can’t be stopped by pressure alone, but it will help save the child’s life in the case of severe bleeding.
Step 3: Seek Legal Advice from a Personal Injury Lawyer
If your child was injured as a result of somebody else’s negligence, you should immediately consult with a personal injury lawyer. If your child was struck by a speeding vehicle, for example, you will have a clear case, but a renowned team of attorneys by your side will help you figure out your options in murkier cases, such as falling in a public place.
The lawyer will help you gather all relevant information from witnesses, locational hazards that contributed to the accident, and ultimately, the level of negligence on the part of the alleged offender. Once this information is collated, they will provide you with an opinion on your legal case and help you decide if it’s worth taking it to court or not.
Final note – Have an emergency first aid kit when out with your children.
Children are naturally clumsy and always getting into things, but accidents do happen. Children can often be hurt by themselves or when someone or something else causes the accident.
You can avoid being unprepared, however, by ensuring that you always have the following items with you when you are with your children:
- Band-aids
- Disinfectant
- Medical tape
- Gauze
- Small bottle of children’s Tylenol/Advil
