Nasty Incident at creche..

run_Forrest_run

Hi All,
I would like your opinions on the following:

I received a phone call from the creche where our 11 month old girl goes to during the day. I was told that she got her finger caught in the hinge of a door. They said they have called the ambulance. Her finger was caught in the door and the hinge had to be unscrewed in order to free her two fingers. Needless to say my daughter was in agony at this stage.

The creche manager and one other staff member accompanied my daughter to the hospital in the ambulance where myself and my wife met them and met our little girl.
To make a long story short our daughter did not suffer any damage, no breaks, no nerve damage or anything so we can be thankful for that.

Now, the creche manager was trying to keep everything upbeat as I reckon she knows they were totally in the wrong. I understand little babies will have accidents but this in my opinion was no accident, my daughter should have never been allowed to get near a door in the first place. I feel the minders were not watching her and the creche is at fault here.

So far i have not said anything in relation to responsibility for this incident.
Basically our trust in the creche in gone and I feel the staff were not doing their job properly to let this happen.

Has anyone else experienced anything like this before?

..a very tired and stressed out dad!

MrPudding

That is awful. Glad she is OK. Are creches not supposed to be child proof with hinge protectors and so forth?

MrP

run_Forrest_run

yes they are and they do have hinge protectors but obviously not on all doors! the manager tried to spin that one on me, saying that they had protectors on the other side but not on the side she got her finger caught in...no help to my daughter eh!

squire1

Sounds nasty, your little girl was very lucky. Glad she is ok.

Don't let anyone tell you it was just "an accident". Accidents are caused by someone not paying attention or not anticipating danger.

To me, when I read your post, the key line was, "basically our trust in the creche is gone". End of story as far as I am concerned.

It's difficult to draw conclusions on this as only you know the layout of the creche but if you have lost trust in the creche then it is only fair to you, your child and the creche employees that you move your child to a different location.

Maybe, you could meet with the creche manager again to see if he/she can say/do anything to restore your trust. This would avoid in inconvenience of having to find someone else to look after your girl. The bottom line is, if you are not happy, move.

johnnyrotten

I hope you daughter is Okay.
The one question I have is why was an ambulance called?

run_Forrest_run

ambulance was called because they could not get her finger free from the hinge...and she was hysterical...and also since she is only 11 months old they called the ambulance to cover their ass and 'just in case'.

johnnyrotten

run_Forrest_run wrote:

ambulance was called because they could not get her finger free from the hinge...and she was hysterical...and also since she is only 11 months old they called the ambulance to cover their ass and 'just in case'.

The "cover their ass" is probably the main reason.
I don't know where you live.
In Dublin there are 11 dedicated emergency ambulances and 5 which do emergency and patient transfer.
I have no doubt that your daughter was hysterical and I have every sympathy for you and her.
Unfortunately there are delays every single day in ambulances getting to real emergencies i.e. Cardiac arrests & disorders, Respiratory arrests & disorders , serious road traffic accidents etc... The list goes on and on.
The main reason for these delays are the volume of 999/112 calls. Unfortunately too many people call an ambulance for non-emergency cases.
It seems to the company policy for almost all companies to call an ambulance for the most trivial thing.
Again thoughts with you and your daughter and Happy Christmas.

run_Forrest_run

I see your point but when U have an 11 month old baby after getting fingers caught in a door are you going to make the call that this is not a scenario that requires an ambulance? what if she lost a finger or damaged nerves in the finger? Would that merit an ambulance? at the time one cannot determine the severity of the incident, if we had that ability then the health service would be in tip top condition.

The Hill Billy

Firstly, OP - I'm glad your kid is OK.

Getting back on topic...
This incident may have been magnified in your mind by the fact that an ambulance was called when it could have been sorted by someone with a screwdriver & some cop on, & a trip to a local GP.

My opinion, for what it is worth, is that accidents like this happen every day. No matter how much of a beady eye we keep on our kids or what protective measures we put in place - they will still manage to get their fingers & other bits stuck in places that they shouldn't.

At least you can be damn sure that the creche owner will be paying extra attention to your little darling from now on. On the other hand - if your trust in this creche has seriously been damaged you should consider getting another to look after your kid. The last thing you want is to spend your working day worrying if they are OK.

MrPudding

johnnyrotten wrote:

Unfortunately there are delays every single day in ambulances getting to real emergencies i.e. Cardiac arrests & disorders, Respiratory arrests & disorders , serious road traffic accidents etc... The list goes on and on.
The main reason for these delays are the volume of 999/112 calls. Unfortunately too many people call an ambulance for non-emergency cases.

How do you define what an emergency is? Does someones life have to be at risk? Personally I think the potential loss of a finger on a small child is a bit of an emergency.

In addition to this, it is very easy for hysterics, especially in a small child, to develop into shock. There are a number of things that could have happened which would easily have warranted an ambulance.

We can all cry "ass covering" but when faced with a screaming child with her fingers trapped where you can probably not see what kind damage has been caused I think an ambulance was a good call.

When faced with an incident and trying to decide whether or not you need to call an ambulance people should not have to wonder if there are enough ambulances on duty.

Hill Billy wrote:

Getting back on topic...
This incident may have been magnified in your mind by the fact that an ambulance was called when it could have been sorted by someone with a screwdriver & some cop on, & a trip to a local GP.

With hindsight we can see that perhaps it could have been resolved as you say. At the time though it was a fairly serious incident.

Hill Billy wrote:

My opinion, for what it is worth, is that accidents like this happen every day. No matter how much of a beady eye we keep on our kids or what protective measures we put in place - they will still manage to get their fingers & other bits stuck in places that they shouldn't.

I am afraid I will have to disagree with you here. Stuff like this does not happen every day in creches. Creches are supposed to be safe places for children to be where they cannot be damaged and should have staffing levels which allow the children to be watched.

Don't get me wrong, I know kids can get away from you at times. For this reason a creche should be fully child proofed.

Hill Billy wrote:

At least you can be damn sure that the creche owner will be paying extra attention to your little darling from now on.

If they could nto do it before the accident whos child will now not be getting looked after properly?

MrP

johnnyrotten

MrPudding wrote:

How do you define what an emergency is? Does someones life have to be at risk? Personally I think the potential loss of a finger on a small child is a bit of an emergency.

In addition to this, it is very easy for hysterics, especially in a small child, to develop into shock. There are a number of things that could have happened which would easily have warranted an ambulance.


MrP

In this case as another poster said, a trip to the GP or a trip to the Paediatric A&E would have sufficed.
Absolutly this was an emergency, but not for the type that required an ambulance.
In an ideal world there would be an ambulance on every street corner waiting on a call.
Unfortunately we do not live in that ideal world.
On a daily basis there are stacked queued calls in the ERCC (Eastern Regional Control Centre). Not all the queued calls are emergencies and not all the current calls are emergencies either.
Consider this: One of your parents collapses with a Cardiac arrest in Artane, the nearest available emergency ambulance is coming from Donnybrook!
This happens often!!!!!:mad:
All I am saying is that if its not an emergency ( Warranting an ambulance ) put the child/person in the car and drive to the A&E.
Thanks

MrPudding

johnnyrotten wrote:

In this case as another poster said, a trip to the GP or a trip to the Paediatric A&E would have sufficed.

My point is, that with hindsight, we can see that an ambulance was not required but at the time it was not so clear cut.

It is not the fault of the creche that there is a shortage of ambulances. Further, it would not be their fault if someone dies because they have called an ambulance.

The creche, nor most people calling ambulances, are not responsible for the number of ambulances on the roads.

MrP

Ickle Magoo

What a horrible thing to happen to your wee girl & you

I think it's very unfair of people to criticise an ambulance being called. When faced with a position of not being able to get the finger out of the door hinge & so damamge assessment was impossible, not to mention the state the poor child was in (shock, hyperventilation, etc, etc) calling the emergency services seems like a sensible thing to do tbh...it is up to the control centre to prioritise ambulances & up to the Government/Health services to provide adequate cover & altho calling an ambulance for a bruised knee is irrisponsible, I think it was waranted in these circumstances - it's very easy to criticise anyones response to an emergency after the event.

OP, on one hand I think creches should be completely safe for our children & I know I'd be livid if anything happened to my son in his - but I think after I had calmed down & gotten over the shock I would realise that altho my house is childproofed to the best of my ability & I keep a very close eye on both the kids - that accidents will inevitable happen everywhere regardless of precautions & care taken. Altho when we entrust our kids to someone else we expect them to keep them absolutely safe from harm, there are always cases when in a roomful of active kids this just isn't going to be possible. My son came home with a bitten chin the other day after an altercation over a toy - should the carer have spotted what was going on? Maybe. Would it have happened if he was home with me? No. But I chose to put him in creche & so I have to accept the bumps & knocks he gets there.

On the other hand, if you no longer trust the creche to do their absolute best to keep your daughter safe - and I know door safety is a different issue to biting, then I'd look at what other options you have. There is no point in you, your wife, or your daughter being upset or worried. Glad she is fine & hope you all get over such a horrible experience ASAP.

FatherTed

johnnyrotten wrote:

The "cover their ass" is probably the main reason.
I don't know where you live.
In Dublin there are 11 dedicated emergency ambulances and 5 which do emergency and patient transfer.
...

Only 16 ambulances in the whole city of Dublin? Really?

OP, your concern is that the accident happened as any one would. We all take the neccessary steps in our own homes to ensure accidents like this do not happen and we should expect the caregivers we employ to do the same. They failed that part. Now it is up to you to figure out whether you want to still employ them in the same capacity.

Also, were you satisfied where their actions once the accident took place?

dame

On the ambulance issue....I've read the policies of the creche my daughter attends (which all parents are given to read and sign), and they say that in an emergency an ambulance will be called, staff will accompany child to A&E and parents take it from there and parents cover all costs incurred. Basically it covers the creche. They can say medical staff had charge until parents get there. When something happens at home you can ring the doctor or VHI Nurseline or whoever you like but when care of other people's children, creches do not want to leave anything to chance, hence they call ambulance just in case it's more serious than they think. Sorry if this is rambling a bit.

Dors1976

run_Forrest_run wrote:

yes they are and they do have hinge protectors but obviously not on all doors! the manager tried to spin that one on me, saying that they had protectors on the other side but not on the side she got her finger caught in...no help to my daughter eh!

That's terrible about your daughter. Are the creche under-staffed? I would call the local pre-school officer and have a chat, maybe ask her/him to make an inspection. I agree the manager is trying to cover herself and it was neglient on their part.

Thank god she's ok. Very scary I'd say though.

Owen

Stuff like this happens all the time. Conincidentally, when I was 3, at home, I managed to shear the top of my thumb completely off in a door hinge. I had it reattached, and it's fine now, but hey, OP, things sure look better after reading my post, eh?

run_Forrest_run

thank you Mr Pudding...someone who sees it as I do. I do not pay that creche 800 euro per month for them to turn around and say to me that this sort of thing happens all the time! I agree, fingers being caught in a door should NEVER happen in a creche where people are paid to look after young children.

That is what I am disappointed about, the creche never once admitted that, they never even contacted us yesterday to see how our daughter is doing. They are just trying to brush it under the carpet. All I want is someone in authority to admit their wrongdoing and promise this won't happen again...but I find this hard to believe...my trust has been compromised with this crowd.

yes, johnnoyrotten and Hill Billy, hindsight is a great thing..would U be so calm and collected as not to call ambulance is it was your kid?

Hi FatherTed, no I am not satisfied with their actions once the incident took place...they have not contacted us to inform us what steps are being taken to ensure it won't happen again. I want to know will this be reported to the regulatory body for creches in this country? The owners of the creche have no hand in running it and I want to talk to them to see if they have been informed of the incident.
In the meantime my wife and I have to alternate days and take time off work to look after our daughter until this is done.

ned78 if you paid a company who say are qualified to look after babies 800 euro a month you would not expect this to happen...OK, babies will have falls and knocks but getting 2 fingers jammed in a door hinge is not your every day little knocks and tumbles in my opinion.

Someone in there was not watching my daughter and she managed to crawl over to a door and while a parent walked in she managed to stick her finger in the door without being noticed. it was only when the door was closed on her finger and caught in the hinge for over a minute was she noticed due to hysterical screaming on her behalf...hardly work of professional & qualified child minders eh?

that is what I am trying to do but how do I get in contact with these people?? via the health board??

The Hill Billy

run_Forrest_run wrote:

yes, johnnoyrotten and Hill Billy, hindsight is a great thing..would U be so calm and collected as not to call ambulance is it was your kid?

Since you ask - Yes I would & have been in the past. Lucky me I guess.

I would also expect that the people who are responsible for my son each day in play school would also be calm & act proportionately in the event of any incident (God forbid) involving my son. If I wasn't confident of their ability to deal with such matters he wouldn't be going there.

Best of luck resolving this matter with the creche.

run_Forrest_run

yes dame, that's pretty much the same policy adopted at the creche my daughter is at.

Miss Judy

OP, have to say this incident is totally unacceptable. If that happened to either of my kids at that age I would hit the roof bigtime. The poor little thing:( , hope she will get over it okay!.
I would blame the creche full stop, no excuses. The fact that an 11 month old got her fingers jammed in the hinges of a door in a toddler or baby room is totally unacceptable and please do not let this go.
My son was hurt in a creche once as a baby and the manger like your one was so quick not to take the blame, that is all they care about so I took him out immediately and called the NCNA and the health board. Been lucky with our 17mth old daughter so far, but the creche is totally childproof and I have been using the same creche for 3.5 years now.
Her poor little fingers, can't stop thinking about it. You are paying alot of money for your child to be well cared for while you are at work and quite frankly she was not being supervised properly for this to happen. I am dissapointed at some of the points made her, yes the ambulance should have been called she is still a baby for gods sake AND it' s not one of those "it happens all the time with kids" scenarios.
I would be furious with them. Hopefully you will get this sorted out. How is your daughter going into the creche in the mornings since the incident?.

run_Forrest_run

hi Miss Judy, thanks for your thoughts....I feel the exact same as you...the creche are trying to play down the whole incident. The problem is we do not have many options, creches are hard to find and this one is close to where we live, otherwise I will be stuck in longer commutes to/from work with my daughter stuck in the car with me which aint good for her.

We have not brought her back into the creche since it happened and the creche did not once contact us to see how she is. All I want is an admission on their behalf that they messed up and that they are sorry and that it will not happen again. But I am furious with them and I no longer trust them but what are our options!

We are meeting the manager later today to talk about this but I don't know what this will solve. I want to contact the owners of the creche, they should be informed on this carry on.

I want to contact the health board about this also but every time I called there was no answer. Seriously we feel let down by the whole system here.
I will not rest easy until this has been reported and someone takes responsibility for this...we are not looking for compensation or anything like that, just some mature responsibility for putting our daughter and us through this sh*t!

Miss Judy

Look, you have to come down on these guys like a tonne of bricks, this is your baby we are talking about here, how dare they behave like this. They should be making one MASSIVE effort to see how she is and ensure that you are restoring your confidence in the place.
Is this a chain of creches and do you have the numbers of the actual owners, if not demand them as they are the ones with the insurance and I am sure they would like to know about this.
Where are you based?. Listen, honestly I think you need to take her out of there after this, it's just going to be a huge burden for you and your wife the worry about her everyday. She might be okay commuting, we did it for a year and I was dreading it but as long as you can sing "row row row your boat", have a bottle for her and supplies you will be fine and she will be all the better in a better creche. She won't care being in the car a bit more with her parents.
Don't let them away with this. Have you the number for the ncna and hse??. It's too serious to let go and tbh their attitude is appalling!.
My heart goes out to you, been there and it's so hard but it does work out for the best in the end. If it's any help we have never looked back, the saying "everything happens for a reason" is very true!!;)

run_Forrest_run

thanks Judy...it is not a chain of creches as far as I know..only one around. no I don't have the owners number but I will find out later as I am going to talk to the manager this evening. the owners need to know this and I want their opinions on this. If they don't seem too concerned then our lil one is going to somewhere new.

I am in Cork and I don't have any numbers to HSE or NCNA (who are they??). After the talk with the manager tonight I will know what we are going to do.

thanks again!

Rodney Trotter

TBH, you sound like a parent with vengance on his mind. No staff member will be in a position to make the admissions you are demanding for fear of any Legal consequences.

If there is no cosmetic damage to your daughter there should be no long term effect from the incident.

I agree such an incident should not happen, but accidents do happen. Something very similar could happen at home, and, unfortunately, very often does, and many time worse than this incident.

Can you imagine how a member of staff sould feel about ringing you w.r.t. this incident? Nobody hurt your child deliberately.

As for nobody doing anything for a minute? I would really just take a step back and think about what you are saying. Nobody would leave a child screaming for one whole minute, ignoring her. None of the accusations about creches only caring about money are helping this situation.

My recommendation to you is to move our child to a different creche. It will never be possible for you or the creche to have full confidence in eachother from now on.

It is also obvious the creche needs a comprehensive Safety Audit completed.

vawns

Hi tired and stressed out dad

I'm really glad your little girl's ok. Have you thought about going back to the creche (if you decide that you want to stay with them) and saying how unhappy you and your wife are about the whole situation? I think the comment about the door hinges is rubbish - Mothercare sells hinges that cover both sides of the door cheaply so it could be either lazyness on their part or they're just not aware of the most recent chilld protection equipment (which sounds very wrong - the whole point of running a creche is to keep chilldren safe and happy).

If they still try to fob you off - I would speak to your local authority and see if they could organise an inspection - hopefully that might make them think again about not having enough child proof equipment.

Hope it works out,

Vawns

run_Forrest_run

Hi vawns, that's exactly what we did yesterday, we spoke to the manager and expressed our disappointment and frustration. She told us since the incident they have put up a gate around the door to stop little people getting near the door. They are also installing the hinge protectors on BOTH sides of the doors (yes, I will cannot believe they only had protectors on one side...even the hospital paeds rooms had full hinge covers!
We asked would the accident be reported to the health board and we saw an assident report form filled out which will be shown to healt board inspectors when they do their next inspection (whenever that will be!).
We are going to see how she goes after Christmas but if I see the slightest thing to concern me I will take my little one out of there and go elsewhere.

littlebitdull

Children can and do have accidents every day. Would I have called an ambulance for this insidence. NO ... its way too trivial for an ambulance. Regardless of how big an event you think it is . It - in the scheme of things - is a small minor accident.

Had she managed to pull a kettle of boiling water onto herself I could see why they might have called an ambulance.

You daughter caught her finger in a door. She did not get attacked by a craven axe madman while attending the creche.

As can be seen by reading your replies you are not going to be satisified untill the creche crawl over broken glass to appologise profusely to you. And even then I cant see you being happy.

Your child is not yet a year. She did not lose a finger. She did not suffer the lose of the use of that finger. She will not remember this next week.

You however will hold this over the creche owners till hell freezes over.

You should change caregivers .. you are never going to be happy with the current creche.

Would you or your partner not consider rearing your child yourself?

dame

littlebitdull wrote:

Children can and do have accidents every day. Would I have called an ambulance for this insidence. NO ... its way too trivial for an ambulance. Regardless of how big an event you think it is . It - in the scheme of things - is a small minor accident.

Had she managed to pull a kettle of boiling water onto herself I could see why they might have called an ambulance.

You daughter caught her finger in a door. She did not get attacked by a craven axe madman while attending the creche.

As can be seen by reading your replies you are not going to be satisified untill the creche crawl over broken glass to appologise profusely to you. And even then I cant see you being happy.

Your child is not yet a year. She did not lose a finger. She did not suffer the lose of the use of that finger. She will not remember this next week.

You however will hold this over the creche owners till hell freezes over.

You should change caregivers .. you are never going to be happy with the current creche.

Would you or your partner not consider rearing your child yourself?[/QUOTE




I agree with this post, you're making far too big a deal of all this. Yes, the creche should have had hinge-protectorson both sides, yes of course you were worried but the child has long forgotten about the incident. I have a little cousin who broke a thumb in a door when she was less than a year old - a trip to the doc and got it strapped up in hospital and that was all there was about it. Child was still battering toys with that hand, same as she always did, days later. If you're not happy change creche. End of.

SarahMc

The creche has not broken any law, the existing Pre-school reglations state nothing about door hinges, the new regs (effective from Sep 07) state that doors should be of a low manual effort to avoid trapping risks.

Inspections happen about once a year. There is no such thing as a child proof environment, well there is, but we tend to think that padded cells are not good environments to rear children in!

We either go down one route where pre School Inspectors will not allow cushions (suffocation risk), baking (scalding hazard), games of chase/running (accidental injury) or we accept that children learn by living in the real world and assessing risk. The world is full of hazards for a toddler, you can't protect them totally, the creche can't protect them totally. I think the creche did their best in this instance.

Pherekydes

run_Forrest_run wrote:

Has anyone else experienced anything like this before?

Yes! My son caught his finger in a kitchen press hinge (yes, in the hinge itself) at the age of two at home. I was standing right beside him at the time. Yes, I could have prevented this incident by not doing anything else except watching him, but then I had two sons and they had to be fed, etc. You may find, if you ever engage in any active parenting, that little incidents like this will happen. You can't watch kids 24/7. If you hold the creche to higher standards then you're crazy. Take them out and look after them yourself.


Another incident: We were on holiday in France. We were standing together in a line gazing out to sea. There was a very stiff breeze in our faces. Suddenly, the wind dropped and my youngest daughter, aged 2 years 10 months fell flat on her face. The stony, gritty surface of the road took a small lump out of her forehead, just above her eye. She still has the dent.

Moral: incidents happen. They're part of life.