On Opening a Free Clinic

Here is another post that can be filed under the "things my wacky neighborhood kids do" category. This weekend I was sitting in the house (a recurring theme for me) when my youngest son came running into the house. He said, in a rather excited tone "My friend cut himself with his pocket knife and is bleeding really bad."

Let me pause my story to tell you a little bit about my youngest son. Like most kids his age (9), he has a tendency to exaggerate. On top of this, he also tends to be a bit overdramatic. I was trying to think of a specific example, but could not. Therefore I will make up a scenario to illustrate my point. My youngest would come into the house and say "My brother is trying to kill me with an axe!" I would do the research and find that my older son was chopping wood and a piece of wood flew off and landed near the younger. Just to make it clear, I don't own an axe and I would never let my 13 year old chop wood unsupervised.

The other thing I wanted to mention was that my youngest son will classify anyone that he plays with as his friend. I am not saying that he is unable to make friends; it is just hard to believe that the way most of these neighborhood kids interact with him, that "friend" is the proper word (unless there is an "un" on the front and a "ly" on the back.) I love my son, but I will also admit that he is a bit challenging. He likes to be in charge and tell others what to do. This sort of behavior is often frowned upon by other kids, but the children that live around us have no problems ganging up on him and being quite mean sometimes. Yet, my son still always refers to these kids as his "friends".

Back to the story....

So after my son told me about his wounded friend, I did not fly out of my chair to investigate. In fact, as I was casually getting up, I was thinking that this was just going to be some kid with a little nick on his hand. As we were walking toward the front door I started asking him why he was hanging out with a kid who was playing with a knife. Before he could answer we arrived at the door and there was his friend. He seemed to be about 10, maybe 11, and was holding a paper towel to his right hand. The paper towel was soaked in blood and I realized that my son hadn't exaggerated at all.

I rushed the kid into my laundry room/bathroom, leaving a trail of blood spots along the route and started to clean the blood off his hand. As I was cleaning I could see that the cut was between his thumb and pointer finger and didn't appear too bad. I doubted it would need any stitches, but every time he moved his thumb the bleeding would start up again. As I was washing the injured hand, my son's friend told me he felt like he was going to throw up. He didn't hurl but asked if he could sit down. I grabbed the garbage can, put the toilet seat down and had him sit down. Hearing that he was nauseous made me a little nervous so I asked him how much blood he thought he had lost. I didn't phrase it like that, but I can't remember what my exact words were. He said that there was a big puddle (exaggeration?) so again, I start worrying.

I got a gauze pad, pressed it to the cut and taped it to hold it in place. I told my young patient that he had to keep his hand still and to try not to use it. I asked him how far away his house was and he said that he lived on some street that I was unfamiliar with. It was then told me that he, his brother and his sister were staying with his father for the weekend, and it was just a couple of houses down the street. He said that his father was asleep though, so I told him that I would walk him to his house. As we were walking I said that he needed to wake his father up when we got to his house and tell him what happened.

As we headed to his house, the kid seemed to be getting more and more nervous. He told me that his father would be angry with him if he woke him up. I assured him that if I was his father I wouldn't be that upset, especially because he was hurt. He insisted that his father would and I really didn't have much to counter-argue, so I let it go. As we got to the front door he showed me the knife, and next to the knife was a stick the he was debarking. Whittling? Now I could see how the cut happened.

He said that all he wanted to do was go inside and lie down, which was what he was going to do before my son had him come to our house. This was the point where I once again failed as an adult. I completely chickened out and did the the worst thing I could have: let the kid do what he wanted. I certainly did not want the kid's father to be mad at him for waking him up. Who knows what the situation was in the house? I even started having some dark thoughts: What if the father was passed out? What if he would beat the kid for waking him up? All sorts of sordid stories started swirling in my head. The true reason I let the kid go was that I really didn't want to deal with his father. As outgoing as I seem to most people, I am really very shy. Meeting someone under these circumstances was something I did not want to do.

I let the kid go in by himself and told him to lie down for a while. I did not see any big pool of blood so I figured that part of the story must have been an exaggeration. I told him to avoid using his hurt hand as much as possible and to tell his father what happened as soon as he woke up. Then I left, feeling like an ass for not making the kid wake his father right then and there.

That brings up an interesting point, however. How much should one go out of their way to help someone else's child? I know some of you maybe wondering what the hell I am talking about -- you should always help a child in need. Well, yes, in theory you should. This kid showed up at my door with a hand drenched in blood, and of course I was going to get him bandaged up and make sure he was okay. But what if I had bandaged him up and sent him home like I did, and heard on the news the next day that the kid had died? Would I be brought up on charges for not waking the kid's father up? What if the kid ended up getting an infection or something? Could I get in trouble for not cleaning the wound out properly? What if the kid woke up his father and his dad got upset at me for not bringing him directly home? You hear about these inane lawsuits where people sue others for trying to help and not succeeding, and wonder if it would be safer just not to even try. But then would you get sued/arrested for not helping, like in the last episode of Seinfeld? It's a crazy litigious society that we live in, but it all boils down to what is right is right. I will always try to help whenever I can. I am not going to be opening a Free Clinic out of my home anytime soon, but I am well stocked in bandaids so if this happens again, I am ready.

In case anyone is curious, my patient survived. He came back over to the house a couple of hours later, while I was returning my kids to their mother's house. He asked my wife for some more bandages. He also asked her if I was a nurse or doctor or something. She gave him the new bandage and sent him on his way. Why did he start with a nurse? Don't I look like I could be a doctor? Dr John has a nice ring to it! Maybe I should start wearing a stethoscope? I feel a bit like George Clooney! And like most kids, I don't think he ever thanked me! Oh well.