I need help. I’m utterly distraught and upset with my sons school, does anyone have any advice?

[mummytorands]

So I’ve been awake all night with keeping my 8 year old as comfortable as possible and yesterday’s events and I wanted to go to the school today and complain about how they handled things but I think I’m going to write to the chair of governors instead so I want to box clever.

So, I leave work yesterday (I work 10 minutes from the school by car) at 2:45 my children are usually let out at 3:10-3:20. School call at 2:50 telling me my son (8) has had a fall during playtime she explained he hurt his arm, elbow hip and knee. He was grazed seen by first aid but very upset and could I get him early of course I said yes I’ll be 5 minutes. Asked then as it’s unusual for him to be as upset as she was saying as he’s quite a tough cookie has he done any damage. No she said first aid moved his arm but seems ok but he’s very upset and think it’s best you came early and that she would get my daughter for me too (5). I pull up to school a TA is bringing them both out and it was quite evident to me we needed to get to hospital. I could clearly see my son was in pain, he was holding his arm, his wrist and hand were limp. I was given no accident form but didn’t think about that until later as my main concern was to get him medical attention. I called minor injuries they said they had a 3 hour wait and they wouldn’t be able to xray today so off to a&e I went which was heaving but we were dealt with pretty swiftly. Xray and he’s broken both radius and ulna and one of the fractures is going into the growth plate. I won’t know the full extent until we see the fracture clinic in 24 hours however we were sent home in a plaster cast and sling and I’ve kept him comfortable with calpol alternating nurofen. My plan is to go into school tomorrow asking for the accident book copy but I want to see it and not have it done and back dated. I will tell them he won’t be in for the next couple of days until I know more but I’m not disclosing the damage he’s done until I know for definite.

I am furious. He very clearly to me had broken his arm the moment I seen him. She played it down to me on the phone and his arm had been manipulated and it should not have been. They did not contact me fast enough and no accident from was given. Does anyone have advice? I want to complain because I’m just so unhappy about the handling and I don’t want it to happen again but I want the first aid training to be looked into also. My poor boy.

I understand that it svery upsetting when your child is injured anywhere but more so at school when you expect them to be safe BUT I don't think the school has done much wrong here to be honest.
DD broke her ankle at school in YR and I was called as she didn't want to put weight on it. When I arrived she was sitting down with an ice pack on it, I was advised to get an X Ray but school didn't offer a diagnosis or anything
DS also had an accident and I got a very "nothing to worry about but please can you pop up to school" to find an ambulance and a paramedic car there and DS lying on the floor getting gas and air.
Schools don't like to panic parents or make decisions around a childs health, they really aren't qualified to so the best thing is to get a Parent to come ASAP to do so, of course they call an ambulance in some situations.
I hope your son is healing well and you both manage to get some sleep.

Your argument seems to be that long bone fractures can have serious consequences so it wasn’t safe for this child to be bundled into a car.

Then you gave a list of complications that sounded like they were AI generated.

Luckily, a bedside ( or playground side assessment) of the arm/hand can demonstrate that yes, it is neurovascularly intact and there aren’t any organs in the arm 😀😀😀 so travelling by car into a medical assessment unit is safe and appropriate.

I’m not saying it wasn’t an accident. What I am saying is that it’s not a regular occurrence, nor is it acceptable for primary children to regularly break bones at break times. And I’ve never known of a situation where a child that I was aware of at any of my children’s schools broke a bone during a break time over a period of 17 years in different schools.

The OP’s son must have sustained the injury hours before she was asked to pick him up. I would want to know why. It’s pretty crappy to let a kid sit with a broken ulna all afternoon, whilst the swelling gets worse when that time would be better spent in A&E.

And anyone saying that you probably couldn’t tell how much pain he was in, really don’t be so disingenuous.

I think the OP is right to complain. School should have phoned her as soon as it happened. And yes they should have given her an accident form so she could see what caused this.

Schools have a duty of care in loco parentis. I wonder how many people would think it was good parenting to be so blasé and to leave a child sitting all afternoon with a broken bone?

It's not possible for them to know that he broke his arm. Broken arms in children often go unnoticed till they go to hospital as for some reason it doesn't seem to anyways make them scream in pain.

I broke my shoulder but didn't know it was broken til the hospital told me. Even though it was absolute agony.

They don't have an x-ray machine and that's the only way to tell if something is broken.

He fell in the playground, they did first aid, told you to come and get him. They really couldn't have done much else. It's not like the bone was sticking out of his skin.

I hope he has a speedy recovery. I remember the kids in school who had casts being very popular and the others all wanted to sign it.

@BobbyBiscuits you can say that about a parent. The key thing is that you were in agony and as such you don’t leave an injury like this until home time.

When I was 5 I broke my arm off a climbing frame at school. I got collected 6 hours later because the school didn't realise it was broken.

My parents still think it's hilarious, and guess what, I'm fine and my arm is fine because I'm a resilient person whose parents didn't have a conniption about every micro-mistake. I know that was the 90s but I do think there has been a cultural shift where we all have to be enraged mama bears over everything.

The worst part was they dismantled the climbing frame and we lost the coolest set of monkey bars because of my fall.

Perhaps you ought to read this full thread, which includes accounts from parents who didn’t realise immediately that their child's accident had resulted in broken bones (in at least one post the mother didn’t realise until the next day), and my account of a child sent to school with what turned out to be a broken arm and dislocated shoulder caused by a fall from his bike the previous afternoon.

Fractures don’t always cause "agony", especially in children.

Pretty pointless posting until we know how long it was after the injury was sustained and when the school called the OP.

She's presumably not coming back.

All of which is beside the point # the point is the poster claimed it was just “radius and ulna” - but the severity of the fracture and risk of complications would not be known prior to medical investigation

This is one of your posts.

I agree you need an X-ray to clarify the nature of the fracture.

you don’t need investigation in hospital to rule out complications such as neurovascular compromise. That should be done as part of first aid triage (colour, movement etc) There is no routine imaging for this unless there is clinical concern.

I agree we seem at cross purposes. Personally, when assessing a child with a sore arm after a fall organ damage isn’t usually my main concern, but to each their own

Yep I made that mistake - DS broke his leg was in agony so when he hurt his wrist and wasn’t in agony I made an assumption. He lasted 2 days on holiday not really complaining it was the flight home that did it

If my child had a “life threatening injury” I’d want them in the back of an ambulance, not in the back of Mr Trooper’s Volvo!

You are upset and that is understandable. The school are not doctors. It is not always obvious that an arm or leg is broken. They got in touch with you immediately.

Your child had an accident and they reacted by comforting him and phoning you rather than sitting down and filling out a pointless form. Sounds about right to me…..

I've seen so many kids over the years who presented late after an injury as it wasn't immediately apparent to the people involved that there was a serious injury.

This includes children of orthopaedic and ED colleagues.

They called you when it was apparent it wasn't settling.

Yes. It isn't nice when your kid is hurt but I'm not sure the school did much wrong.

I absolutely think they should have done more and should not have played down the seriousness of it. Accidents happen but it is how they handle it. My son fell at primary and hurt his wrist and they could tell he was in a lot of pain. They phoned me at work to tell me and said they thought it needed checking over. When I got there - the headteacher offered to drive us to the walk in centre - I didn't drive at the time. She offered to stay too but she had done enough.
Most of the time treatment at school was a wet paper towel /plaster and a bump note but you want them to be able to tell the difference between the two.

The OP’s son must have sustained the injury hours before she was asked to pick him up.

How do you know that?

I needed an ambulance for a broken arm. I had broken my right radius and ulna. The bones were sticking out through my skin and I was bleeding a lot. I was also away from home on a European city break, didn't have a car with us and no taxis would take me due to the bleeding.

Broken arms CAN sometimes need an ambulance.

OP, I get that this is upsetting for you. I hope your DS gets good treatment today and is soon more comfortable.

Gather information from the doctors first about the full nature of the injury and then decide how/whether to take it forward with the school. It does sound to me as though they downplayed it and maybe they shouldn't have, but they might not have wanted to panic you if you were driving.

Manipulating the arm wouldn't have worsened the actual break, but can exacerbate soft tissue damage around it. Are you sure they actually did this, or did they just ask DS what he could actually do with the arm himself?

By the way, you talked about giving DS Nurofen. Which has ibuprofen as the active ingredient. When my arm was broken I was told by the Pharmacist who prepares my regular medication each month that I should not take it for pain management whilst the fracture was trying to heal, especially in the early stages. This is because it can inhibits the formation of the callous at the broken ends of the bone and can slow down the new union of the broken pieces. So if I were you I would not give any more Nurofen or anything else that contains ibuprofen before taking medical advice on it. Just paracetamol for now, until he can be prescribed something else if necessary.

My DD broke her wrist at sport where St John’s ambulance examined her and said she’d be fine and it was probably bruised. It was broken but I wasn’t angry with them.

You’re in shock and upset but it’s not the schools fault, these things unfortunately happen. Kids also recover and mend quickly. Hope he and you are ok.

So much nonsense here. How would an accident report have improved anything?

First aid training absolutely does not leave somebody competent to recognise breaks from the myriad other (more likely) injuries. Seeing how the arm is moving is completely appropriate, unless you think every time a child falls a school should tell them to stay still until an ambulance arrives just in case it's a break.

Why "presumably" fell during lunch time?

This is not a matter for the governors.

Sorry to hear this OP. I hope he has a good outcome and feels better soon. One thing though, it's not advisable to give nurofen as it's a NSAID and they're not recommended for broken bones as they slow down the healing process.

Why do you need to be angry with anybody?

There are so many threads on here where people are unable to accept that accidents happen. It always has to be somebody's fault.

I never said anything of the sort. Not even close.

I can't see what was done wrong here by the school. Raising children isn't like driving - there isn't always an at fault driver to blame. Not read full thread but if you haven't already I'd put your energy into finding out the detail of how he fell, and see if there are any learning points for you there re shoes / clothing etc? Quite likely it is just one of those things though.