Here is what happened... Henry was sitting on one of our wooden kitchen chairs. They are pub height so they are taller than most chairs. I had Hannah in my lap and asked him to get down. He is a pretty good listener and started his decent down the side of the chair. His feet hit the floor but somehow he managed to pull the chair down on top of himself hitting his head. He sat on the floor crying. My mom was here and went in to get him. I put Hannah down and as I walked into the kitchen my mom said, "Blood!" I grabbed a rag to clean it up. As I looked at him we say TONS of blood all over him and the floor. I grabbed him as my mom held the rag on this head. I called 911 due to the volume of blood. When they couldn't hear me over his screaming I handed him off to mom and went into the other room. I quickly relayed all the important information and hung up. I tried to call Nick's cell but couldn't reach him. So I called the main church line and told the secretary that Henry was hurt, I called the ambulance and Nick needed to come home now. I then sent Cali and Hannah upstairs with mom, while Henry and I waited downstairs for help to arrive. I've never been so happy to hear a siren in my life!
My the time the fire department got here the bleeding had slowed down. The men were very nice and even made a glove balloon for Henry. The paramedics cleaned him up and said he only needed a few stitches. They said we could take the ambulance to the ER but an urgent care would be faster. I opted for the faster route considering it was close to nap time. The first responders left and Nick came home. Henry and I loaded up in the van and headed to the local urgent care. After a brief discussion with a nurse we were told to go to the ER because they couldn't sedate him for stitches and I agreed there was no way he was going to stay still to get stitched up.
So we loaded up again and drove the the ER. I figured that bringing in a bleeding toddler with an open head wound would get us to the top of the list. Well it took almost 3 hours of waiting in the waiting room before we went back. I was told not to feed him, he wouldn't sit down without climbing all over the place and he wouldn't nap. So for 3 hours I held him and paced the waiting room. Finally he had had it and head butted me (yes he's a boy!). This caused the wound to let loose a bunch of blood all over him, me and the floor. We were in front of the desk when it happened. I just looked up and said, "Help!" They quickly whisked us to a room in the back. If I had known that would have worked I would have hit his head 3 hours ago!
Once we got back to a room and the blood stopped we had to wait for all the nurses and doctors to come in to look at it. It was determined that due to the position and depth of the cut he needed to be sedated and a plastic surgeon would need to stitch him up. It took another 3 hours to get the resident doctor, the attending doctor, the respirator guy, the nurse and the plastic surgeon in the room to stitch him up. By now it is 8pm Henry hasn't eaten since 12 and hasn't napped. He did great getting the IV and the sedation was just happy drugs to make him calm but he wasn't "out". The actually procedure took 5 minutes.
Once he came out of the sedation he looked at me and passed out. Once he was asleep I couldn't wake him, remember no nap, so we had to wait 45 minutes for him to rest. At this point I was finally able to wake him up and get us discharged. We finally left around 10pm. Poor Henry slept all the way home. Once home we got him out of the bloody clothes, feed him and in bed at 11pm.
Friday Henry was up and acting like nothing happened! He is actually more fearless now then before the stitches. So I feel we will to have to say the phrase, "You are going to bust your head open" a lot in this house.
Lessons learned:
1. If the ambulance comes to your house, get in it.
2. Always go to the ER in pairs. Poor Nick was trapped at home with the girls so he couldn't come help me entertain Henry for the 7 hours.
3. Take the iPod and phone chargers.
4. Bring food to the ER
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