SOME parents SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO HAVE CHILDREN!!!!

[cooljeff]

I just started a weird gun related thread too, but I also wanted to vent about my day! I am a Special Education teacher in Moore and I LOVE my job, and I love the kids I work around. Usually it is fairly average day at work, other than general elementry playground diputes, kids with attitudes with adults, ect. But today I was outside during recess and it was only me and another duty teacher outside with over 100 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders. Anyways I was walking around tying shoes, and wiping noses like normal. LOL. And this 1st grade student who is notorious for getting in trouble and making up stories to get attention comes up to me holding his hand around his throat, he is trying to talk, but is just gagging. So I say (students name, can't say much due to FERPA) and I ask him whats going on, he finally eeks out that he is choking. But the first few seconds he looks like he was smiling. So I just say "I don't have times to play games out here right now, well about that time tears start coming down his face and he turns beat red! I realized he was probably not joking. I looked around for the other on-duty teacher, but she was on the other side of the playground tending to issues with other kids. I was in SERIOUS panic mode! I was freaking out, because by this time (probably 10-15 seconds after he first approached me) he is breathing in short raspy breaths. So I tried to remember learning the heimlich maneuver, so I grab him from behind and push up with my thumbs into his chest, but it didn't work. Then I realized I was much too high on his little body, so I re-adjusted the angle and went down below his ribs just above his belly button and push up again. This is working, but he just spits up more saliva, ect. So I thought to myself don't hold back, even if you hurt him at least he can breath. So the third attempt I pushed up HARD and sure enough he spits a NICE NEW SHINY PENNY about 2 feet out in front of him. Afterwards I called the office and told them what happened and he goes in. When I get in there I knew I would have to fill out an incident report due to the nature of it. So as I am filling out my report and talking to the office ladies I hear the principal calling the students mother. She is kind of loud when she talks, so you can't help but hear. anyways she is telling the mother what happened and then says "I need you to come and pick (student name) up and have him looked at". Well apparently the mother is TOO BUSY to be bothered by her sons condition. I then hear the principal say "well after you get done grocery shopping can you come and get him". The she says "yes the coin came out after the teacher performed the maneuver but it is the schools policy for children to be taken home for observation in situations like this". So eventually the principal gets off the phone and comes to the doorway of her office and starts talking to us. She say that the mom told her she was grocery shopping in Norman and couldn't come by to get him. Then when the pricipal asked her about after that she said she had freezable items she had to get home first. Then she just asked if he could stay because the penny was forced out!

I just told the pricipal "Amazing" and she said yep, this is what it's usually like with some of these parents. Now I am not by any means the best father in the world, but if I would have recieved that call I WOULD HAVE DROPPED MY D@MN GROCERIES AND LEFT!!!!! I mean seriously???? If for no other reason than to make my child feel better and after that scare the H%LL OUT OF THEM AGAIN! with what could have happened and how stupid that is to do.



ANYWAYS, sorry for the long winded post. But I just needed to vent! With this job you just have to talk to people to make the stress easier. Even if the names have to be changed due to privacy laws. Anyways, thanks for listening.

 

[piston10]

Some? You mean most parents.

 

[cooljeff]

Some? You mean most parents.

unfortunetly so true!!!!!

 

[4play]

You must feel quite proud that you probably saved the life of that little kid, at least you should. Did the mother show up and thank you for your actions? I would have dropped whatever I was doing to go get my kid, like you said if for nothing else but to make the rest of his day better.

 

[mugsy]

Some? You mean most parents. unfortunetly so true!!!!!

How fortunate that you two are among the minority that should be allowed to have kids!

Seriously though, while I understand your frustration, to paint most parents as unworthy is just over-reaction and unfair. Most people are just average Joes (and Josephines) who try their best, screw up from time to time and yet, somehow, manage to muddle through.

 

[Danny Tanner]

At most I can understand, if the kid appears to be OK, for the mom to say "ok, I'm going to run my groceries home and then be by to pick him up, but please let me know if his condition changes."

But as mentioned above, good for you for saving that little boy. I'm sure he doesn't have the world's worst mom by any means, but it's nice to know he's in good hands even when he's away from home. To be honest, I was expecting a story to end with something similar to "now the parents are suing me/the school for blah blah blah...".

We had a scary situation in our house 2 weeks ago. The 6 year old has never had an issue with putting things in her mouth, nose, or ear until recently. 2 Sundays ago she's sitting at the desk in the kitchen watching Netflix while I'm preparing dinner. I go outside to pre-heat the grill and come back in and I hear her in the bathroom throwing up and crying. Being a 6 year old that doesn't always wait for her food to settle before she decides to play, it's common for her to throw up once a month or so, but she'll throw up and skip away saying "I threw up!" like it's no big deal. For her to be crying, something was different. I find puke all over the hallway carpet and the bathroom. She's saying she's scared. I say "you always throw up, why's it scary this time?" and she says "I don't know". So I go to the kitchen to get a wet paper towel and a bottle of water and see a huge puddle of puke behind the desk chair. Which is the second clue piquing my curiosity, as she can usually tell when she's about to throw up and make it to the bathroom with no problem.

I go back to the bathroom and she's on the ground saying "Owie! Owie!". I ask her what's wrong and if her stomach hurts. She says no and points to her throat. Well I figure maybe it's burning from stomach acid, so I ask if it's burning like she's eaten spicy food and she says no, that it feels like a penny is stuck in her throat. I ask, "did you swallow a penny?" and she says "I did when I was 3", so I assure her it wouldn't be that. I ask her again if she's sure it's not burning like she's eaten spicy food and she says it's not that. I ask if she swallowed a chip without chewing it properly, she says no. I ask her if she swallowed anything else besides food and she says "I can't remember". Then the light bulb goes off, and I remember her being curious and playing with my pocket change earlier, so I ask her if she swallowed any of my money and she said no. So I tell her that in order for me to help her the right way, I need to know the truth, and assure her she won't be in trouble for telling the truth. She says "OK", so I ask, "did you swallow my money?" and she says "no, I swallowed one of my dollars." My dad gave her six Sacajawea gold $1 coins for her 6th birthday. These things are huge (well, bigger than a quarter, still way too big for a 6 year old to have stuck in her throat).

So I rush her to Mercy with the trash can in her lap, as the coin is tripping her gag reflex and causing her to throw up every 2-10 minutes. They see her immediately, do an xray, and sure enough there's a round medallion stuck square center in her throat. Mercy tells me "we're not equipped to handle situations like this.." (all while I'm thinking, "you're a fully functional emergency room and hospital, how are you not equipped to handle this?!) "...so we need to transport via EMSA her to Children's Hospital." All I see are dollar signs, but I'll argue about money and what they are and aren't equipped to handle later. Children's does an xray when she arrives there, the coin hasn't shifted. It's stuck in her esophagus rather than her trachea, so there's little concern for choking and she becomes a low priority unless she pukes it up and inhales it. So they keep her overnight, all while she's continuing to puke every 2-10 minutes (despite the anti-nausea medicine they injected her with three times that didn't do a single bit of good (which I objected to, because she wasn't sick to her stomach, it was a physical gag reflex)), and they finally get her into surgery a bit after noon the next day. The procedure literally took less than 2 minutes, as they could see the coin through her mouth and all they had to do was reach in and fetch it using forceps. Something they probably could have done in the ER (though I don't understand the proper process for handling such situations). So from 6:45 PM Sunday to noonish Monday, she couldn't eat or drink and was throwing up every few minutes for something they corrected in a matter of 120 seconds. I wished so hard that it could be me on that hospital bed throwing up, hungry, thirsty, and in pain. It broke my heart to see her feeling so pathetic, even though I knew everything would be alright. I can't imagine how parents with legitimately ill children handle it. If that's any of you here, you have my deepest and sincere sympathy and respect.

Sorry for the hijack story/rant.

 

[tntrex]

Not defending the paren,t but sending a kid home because he was choking on a penny.?!.. Geez things have changed. I remember my buddy broke his arm in 3rd grade doing the-how far can you fly off the swing contset- and he made it almost all day thru school before they finally called his mom.

 

[Devilsbcoach]

I remember kid's getting injured at school and still finishing the day as well. Unfortunately, today's litigious society has forced those of us in the field of education to adopt all sorts of inexplicable policies and procedures to make sure our arses are covered.

 

[gillman7]

As a parent of 7 kids, I think we have too many drama queens. As has been mentioned before, if the kid is fine, I will be there, but too many times we rush around making the kids the focus of our lives, and they grow up with distorted sense of reality. I had several times that the school nurse, stitched me up, and gave me an aspirin, sent home a note and stayed at school. That was before cell phones, and you didn't call parents for every burp and fart.

I would have come and checked on them, but to quote my parents, and grandparents, if there isn't a bone sticking out, or gushing blood, walk it off and suck it up, you'll be fine.......

 

[Pulp]

Danny, some distant relatives of mine had a grandchild swallow a nickle and it stuck in his esophagus, just like your daughter. Nurses recommended transfer to Texarkana, but the ER doc said "No, I can remove it." During the process she dropped the nickle and it went down his trachea and killed him, DRT. I think he was about three. ER doc immediately vanished and hasn't been seen since.

So while I don't agree with the hospital letting your daughter suffer all night, I do agree with taking her to surgery to remove the dollar. Putting her to sleep to prevent any sudden movement was a good thing.