Real Burns Story: "Had we not taken these steps, her injury could have been a lot worse"

Trigger Warning: BURNS

This real story about a little girl who suffered burns to her finger, and whose parents were able to significantly help with her recovery by immediately responding with the appropriate first aid they learned in our Infant and Child First Aid Course.

While we hope that you'll never have to use the skills you learn in our courses, life happens so we are here to empower parents  with the knowledge to change outcome of an emergency situation for the better.

Shared with consent.

A few weeks ago we were out celebrating a first birthday at a local hotel.

It was a 23 degree day.

Our little girl was having a great time walking around the place until she tripped on a metal ramp connecting the function space to outside. She put her hands down to catch herself and immediately screamed a scream that made my blood run cold.

I picked her up and could see her hands were red and starting to blister already. I knew exactly what to do.

I took her to the toilets to run under cold water for a little while but the sink didn’t give much room to do this.

So, we jumped in the car and drove a short distance to a family member’s house.
I then got in the shower with our girl under the cool water for 20 minutes, holding her hands under. This felt like hours! 

We had the glad wrap ready to cover her hands when we got out. My husband rang nurse on call at the same time who advised us we were doing exactly what we were supposed to be doing and told us we needed to take her to emergency. We covered her hands with the glad wrap and jumped in the car.

Once in emergency, they gave her some pain relief and commended us for the first aid we had applied already.

The doctors advised our girl needed to have a debridement procedure done under a sedative to remove the blisters on her hand. 

Once the procedure was done, her hand was wrapped with a nitrate dressing and bandage. It needed to remain wrapped for at least two weeks. We had a Telehealth appointment with the Royal Children’s Hospital 4 days later to assess and create a plan moving forward with treatment. 

During appointment the doctor mentioned she was really happy with our immediate first aid response and that had we not taken these steps, her injury could have been a lot worse. 

After a few appointments and re- dressings, her hand is healing really well now and you wouldn’t really know she had suffered a burn. 

We are so thankful we did the baby first aid course with Nicole from Rhythm First Aid. We have her wonderful first aid resources hanging on our fridge and rather than panic our training come straight back to us. Thank you, Nicole for your informative and memorable training. Things could have been a lot different for our little girl without it.