In the pursuit of having a very fun time sometimes kids are not quite
as safety conscious as they should be. We were having a water play
afternoon break during the camp which included a water balloon toss,
water relay races and all that type of stuff. In the relay race they
constructed everything was pretty fun including a makeshift
slip-and-slide the camp counselors had put together. The only flaw in
the slaw was that at the end of the slip-and-slide they had arranged
an obstacle in the form of a six foot section of 18” diameter
irrigation pipe. Several people had slid down the pipe but no one was
doing it well.
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| Pro Tip: This type of pipe is best suited for irrigation applications and not for trying to run slide and slip through. |
Then one overeager girl decided to attempt the
ram-it-home method of relay race competition and slide as hard as she
could to make it cleanly through the pipe. She built up speed,
flopped to her belly and slid towards the pipe at a reckless speed.
She was misaligned and slapped sideways into the pipe which had a
sharpish edge. It cut a neat crescent into her side deep enough to
see some fat, muscle and some intestines. The insides stayed inside
but there was a few seconds where the view was unobstructed by blood
then it came in a gush. I still had a shirt so I direct pressured it
while some other kids got her laid down and calm. Others ran for help
and in twenty minutes the local paramedics had taken over. It must
have been not quite as bad as I thought because she was back to the
camp with a dozen or so stitches and the yellowing of iodine wound
prep covered by some gauze she had to peel back several times to show
the curious her war wound. My shirt looked pretty bad-a with
bloodstains on it and when I wore it from then on it made for an easy
segue into a discussion about how calm I was under fire. The wound
was more life threatening and gruesome in those retellings, not to
build myself up but to put the scope of my heroism into proper
perspective.
