I’m usually at a match on my own but there are other staff in the hosting school. It does not take much to call injury time, pause a match to assess the injury and make a call to parent(s). Or to hand my phone/school mobile to another staff member (of the hosting school) and ask them to keep trying on my behalf so I can restart the game. It’s a SCHOOL game, not the Netball World Cup. It obviously depends on the perceived level of injury: a staved finger or twisted ankle I would just ask the child to sit off with an ice pack, phone/text their parent to make them aware but there would be no rush to get them home etc. I wouldn’t feel the need to call parent myself and would mention it at pick up or tell child to ice it etc once home. A suspected broken bone/ligament damage (which is very painful!) then I want to speak to the parent myself and ask them to either collect child or meet us at a local minor injuries unit depending on how far away we are from home school. In that case I would have to forfeit the match.
The problem is, if you’re the sole staff member and you have to go to the hospital with a child, you don’t have anyone else to take the team home for you. So you’re reliant on all parents travelling to the host school to collect their children and technically you can’t leave with injured child until the others are all picked up. The host school isn’t responsible for your pupils! Unfortunately it’s very difficult to get additional staff members to come with you these days :-( People don’t want to give up their time, take on the added responsibility or put themselves in positions like what I’ve described above.
However I would also need confirmation from the child’s parent that they were happy for another child’s parent to take them home -unless they’re on the consent form as an emergency contact. So if the other parent had said to me “look you’re on your own, I can phone Child’s mum and offer to bring Child home so she can get treatment” that would be a HUGE help but I would want to speak to you to ensure that’s okay and to say “it looks like she might’ve done xyz to her knee, I would recommend getting it checked out”.
It sounds to me like a case of poor communication, maybe even inexperience, but no malice in it. I would be inclined to contact the school and ask them to review/share their procedures for incidents like this. Even to highlight the position sole teachers are put in when travelling away with teams. I suspect the teacher was hugely relieved when the other parent offered to get your daughter home because it meant she got home and treatment faster than if she’d had to wait at the away school for you, but it could’ve been handled better.
It’s a shame it’s happened. Sometimes we have to make decisions in a high stress situation and unfortunately it’s not always the right one.
I hope your daughter makes a quick recovery. Netball is a fantastic sport and gives them such great opportunities with their peers!