“For the Good of the Children”??

I…am…so…angry. How DARE health professionals not quickly treat BURNS promptly (as per standard protocols), especially with a PAED patient!!!

The do NOT deserve to be in such a position of power of a human life. Or the need retraining. Paed + burns = prompt treatment.

Angry at my fellow health professionals. Wait, scrap that, I do not consider them my working kin, I reject them.

That makes absolutely no sense.

I am not normally one to shout this (because in general people have gone to far with it) but in this case, I think they should sue the hospital. I don’t think they should settle, either. I think this needs to be made into a big case, and brought the everyone’s attention. I think it needs to be made national, and I think a judge (no judge is going to rule that a child shoud have to sit for 6 hours with excrutiating pain from burns) needs to point this out to all hospitals in America so that this can not happen again.

I also think that any money won should go to the child’s charity of choice, so that he doesn’t think that lawsuits are the way to get things.

checkrd with nys cps…according to them this is a policy..so that a good case can be made against the parents. what about the child in pain? they will get some one there as soon as possible and children are tough. ARE YOU F******G kidding me? who gave anyone the power to keep a child in pain for their convinience? can you define child abuse for me because this is it. the foxes are guarding the henhouse.

Oh my god…

Yet again I am so very glad that here in Israel people still retain a degree of common sense and don’t let fear and paranoia lead to a situation where children are purposely and needlessly made to suffer.

My 4th grader has now been to the emergency room 3 times for injuries to his right hand. Instead of suspecting non-existant abuse they actually ASKED him what happened – and then suggested that perhaps he’d like to consider a position other than goalie in soccer ;). Sheesh.

My heart breaks for that poor little boy.

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Ye gods….

I think its time to find another hospital…..

This is NEGLECT on behalf of the hospital!!!!!!

File a suit, a complaint, anything! This poor kid doesnt have to suffer because the freakin’ social worker hasnt come yet!

If the burns were serious, then he shouldve been seen right away!

Dont let this dreadful hospital get away with it-show them no mercy for making a poor 6-year old wait for 3 hours just so he could be checked for child abuse!!!

I am a foster parent. Several years ago while at a family visit the mother alerted the social worker to “multiple bruises” on the three kids all under the age of two. I forced my way past many people to see three babies stripped naked being photographed from all sorts of angles.

Luckily when the children were placed and while my pediatrician rolled his eyes, I had him document their Mongolian marks. He insisted the EVERYONE knew Mongolian marks and how they looked nothing like bruises. Turns out none of the social workers knew what they were and had I not had a graph from my doctor I would’ve, at the very least, lostthose children and quite possibly the others in my care at the time.

Now they were not “injured” but being stripped naked and photographed at the very mention of abuse by someone who has reason the make false allegations is insane. My three do not remember this incident, but their older siblings do.

I’m speechless.

How horrifying for that family. This past September 4, my 6 year-old daughter fell into a campfire and burned her hands and forearms badly. We drove 45 minutes to the nearest hospital, in another state. She was taken back immediately and treated. I stayed at the desk and gave them her name, birthdate, insurance, etc… for about 45 seconds, then they told me to go be with her. After she was given morphine and had calmed down, they sent someone back to gather the rest of the needed information from me.

At all times, I was assured that accidents happen, that this is not my fault. We ended up getting life-flighted to the nearest burn unit (4.5 hours by car), and stayed in the hospital for a week. We first saw our social worker on day 3.

Mandatory reporting, yes. Before treatment, NEVER. This is punishing the child, not the “abuser”.

I get asked all the time if I’ll ever take her camping again. Of course! She wanted to go back the very next weekend, when she got out of the hospital!

Although I am disgusted at the hospital and its policies, I’m more disgusted by a parent that would let his child cry in pain for three hours without medical attention. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? What does it take to get this man to speak up for his child?

That world is a weird one.

A few years ago, I sat in our ER with my 6-month old who had been suffering from an unexplained illness. For 2 weeks I watched her decline, taking her to the pediatrician every other day… then every day until the rushed us to the ER.

One of the doctors in our office had done procedure I found repulsive, I hadn’t slept in days, no one had an answer, I was sick of the medical folks poking and prodding … Mother Lion was on guard.

They put in an IV (I made them get someone who could do it on the first try), called in a specialist, then informed me they would do a spinal tap. Over my dead body were they sticking another needle in my baby’s body without proof that she needed it. In an out-of-body moment I watched myself roar at the staff, daring them to come close. Thankfully, the specialist arrived and quickly diagnosed a life-threatening (yet treatable) abscess on her tonsil.

Days later (we stayed at the hospital for a couple weeks), one of my new friend nurses told me that the ER staff had left my room to call in CPS since I refused the spinal tap. Apparently, if the specialist hadn’t come or diagnosed as he did, they would have taken her from me … declaring me a negligent mother.

That was ten years ago — it still makes my stomach hurt. It’s a weird world we live in… often great – but sadly weird.

A child could die of a serious burn that is untreated for 3 hours. What the hell. I sincerely hope that some dumbass misunderstood the rule, and has been promptly fired.

When I was 2 (100 years ago), I was a tomboy and bore more than the average number of bumps and bruises. One day my brothers were jumping off a dresser onto the bed, I decided to follow them, an accident occurred, and my forehead was busted open. I was duly taken to the ER where, according to my mother, I was questioned repeatedly both before and after the stitches (including in a room away from my mom) about what had happened and whether anyone had done that to me. Needless to say, my mom was not in a hurry to bring me back to the hospital (or doctor) after that. Because yes, it is easy to talk a kid into saying someone hurt her. (The fact is, my 5yo brother “helped me jump,” and I hate to think what would have happened if I’d said “B pushed me” instead of “I fell off the dresser.”)

I agree with Silver Fang; it has to be made public that this child was abused by this hospital. Otherwise, how can we stop this from happening again?

MEANWHILE, actual abuse cases continue and continue to go unreported… because… guess what? Abusers probably don’t bother to take their kids to the hospital for stuff like that!

I have had DHR called on me for something as small as an unfortunately placed mosquito bite (under the eye) on an obviously healthy/happy/well-cared-for child, but thousands (or more?) other children live in fear of their own parents.

A society is judged by how it treats its children and elderly. We don’t do either well.

I have mixed emotions on this. One, if there was any suspicion, why didn’t staff shoo the dad out of the room and ASK the kid what had happened? You’d think they’d be pretty good at calming down kids and reading their reactions.

On the other hand, I wish someone had done that for me thirty-plus years ago when I was being abused. No matter how many ‘trusted adults’ I told, no one ever did anything.

We need a happy medium. Neither one of these is it.

I understand the reasoning behind the policy of reporting it for investigation. I think that is a good thing, because there have been too many stories about children being harmed or even killed at the hands of parents or parental figures, even though there had been suspicions. What I DON’T understand is why the hospital had to wait until after the CPS worker arrived before they could treat the boy. Why couldn’t they treat his burns first, and then do the interview?

While visiting my inlaws a few years ago, my then 14 month old fell into their stacked rock fireplace and had a 3 inch gash right at her hairline. My father in law kept the older two (6 & 3) while I took her to the ER. Four stitches later, I returned to their home to find my father in law walking down the deck with the 3 year old screaming in pain. She had a 5 inch sliver of wood decking shoved under her toenail, through the nailbed and into the toe she and her sister had been playing “alligators and snakes” on the deck). I handed him the 14 month old, put the 3 year old in the car and drove straight back to the ER. They removed her toenail, extracted the small tree, and sent us on our way with a few chuckles on the odds of 2 ER visits in 3 hours. While sitting on the deck trying to decompress, I noticed the oldest playing with a bungee strap. She had hooked it to the deck rail and was pulling it. As the words “stop before you hurt yourself too” left my mouth, the strap popped lose and sliced a huge gash into her upper leg. Still wearing the same bloody clothes from the first two visits, I rushed her to the same ER. She received 18 stitches, and I was sitting in fear knowing that social services would surely be called. The doctor just laughed and said that I had to have set some sort of record and they should offer me a volume discount. After that day, all I wanted was a grande margarita with an extra tequila shooter, but alas, I couldn’t indulge because I was 6 months pregnant with TWINS! Accidents happen when you don’t wrap your children in cotton wool and keep them in a hermetically sealed bubble of childproofed, climate controlled safety. Whoever said girls weren’t as rough as boys, never reared 4 active girls, because my sons is much less accident prone!

What’s really sad is that I found myself thinking to myself, how can I treat burns at home? That’s the kind of fear state we end up with when even the innocent (both the parents and the child in this case) are punished. What does it say about us as a culture when we are taught to fear the very people who are supposed to be protecting us?

I feel sick to my stomach – a child in pain, and stuff around to treat the pain but not allowed to have anything until a frigging social worker arrives? Isn’t this child abuse? Don’t they have cameras at that place? What about the 3 hours the dad had to tell the kid to not say anything? Sick, sick, sick!

Kristi: Thank you. You have just given me strength to survive pretty much anything life could throw at me over the next . . . three years or so.

Oh do I hope they sue. That seems to be the only way to regain common sense in this case and in this society. I’d have lost my goddamned mind. Or called the cops and made a huge stink. I can’t believe places like this exist in my own country… though, in other countries (with the exception of a few) they seem to believe in kids being kids and not danger magnets for EVERYTHING including parents.

This is beyond wrong but doesn’t particularly surprise me. Enrage me, yes; surprise me, no. But, then again, I’ve had nothing but BAD experiences in the ER. Which probably comes from living in a large city. Last time I was in the ER I was having an obvious miscarriage at 12 weeks. I had just been there earlier that evening and was back in excruciating pain. Sat in the waiting room a good 40 minutes before being triaged. At that point the nurse basically told me to suck it up and sent me back to the waiting room in agony, tears streaming down my face from the pain. I sat there for about 5 hours before I was called back. About 2 hours after triage I finally miscarried in the waiting room bathroom with everyone listening (my husband said they could all hear me crying and hollering in pain). Talk about abuse. I’ve never felt so small and insignificant in my life…if I had known that’s how they were going to treat me I would have taken my chances at home where I at least could have passed out from exhaustion in my own bed after the pain was gone (I hadn’t slept in at least 2 days).

Anyway, experiences like that make me shy away from the ER even when my kids get hurt. I’m constantly wondering if it’s really “ER worthy” because it seems nothing good ever comes out of going to the ER. I remember having to take my son, then 2, to the ER because *I* accidentally dislocated his elbow. We had to wait 2 hours for my husband to get home (he was okay as long as he didn’t move it) and then on the way to the hospital I realized how it looked and just burst into tears because I was sure they would take the kids from me because *I* did it to him even though it was completely accidental. I was terrified but he was in pain so there was no other option. But as we got him out of the car I accidentally popped his elbow back in. We checked in but it was apparent he was fine and we left. I’m still surprised they didn’t try to stop us (they did bill us almost $200 for sitting in their waiting room…we hadn’t even been triaged before we left).

Then there was the time I took my oldest, then 3, to the CHILDREN’S ER at a different hospital (supposedly the best Children’s hospital in our area) because she woke up in the middle of the night screaming (I assumed migraine). As we waited in the tiny, extremely crowded and overly hot waiting room it became apparent that “children’s ER” meant nothing to this hospital. The children’s ER was also the adult urgent care (non-emergencies were sent over from the regular ER) and they had just as much precedent as the kids.
So, the 50+ year old woman that had sliced her finger and needed a few stitches was going to be seen before the 4yo boy out in the hall having the obvious asthma attack, wheezing and gasping for air as his mom held him in tears. The people in the waiting room said they had been there for several hours and the boy had been there before they got there. It was OBVIOUS he couldn’t breathe and both him and his mom were terrified but, you know, there are adults with sliced fingers and other non-life threatening illnesses that need to be treated first. I was sickened and almost went off on the poor nurse just sitting by watching it all (at least she didn’t tell us to get out of the hallway where there a dozen signs posted that we weren’t allowed to sit around out there…there were no more seats available in the waiting room where there were kids coughing and spewing who knows what all over). We left without being seen (got billed for that, too). I will never take my kids back there…it’s a joke.

If I can speak from the social worker perspective–yes, this is ridiculous. Any good social worker (or human) will tell you keeping a frightened child in pain for as long as possible is not the best way to get an accurate description of what happened. Aside from being rather inhumane.

I had a family referred to me for foster care prevention due to a somewhat similar scenario. The 14 month old fell of the bed and burned his arm on a radiator. Mom did everything right in taking the child to the hospital, following up, etc. However, the hospital had to make a call. I’ve now been seeing this family for counseling and parent skills training for close to a year. Why? Because it was determined that mom showed “poor judgment” in letting the child nap on the bed, not the crib. My hands are tied, but I wish I could close this case immediately. Families who actually need help are not getting it, because a (very limited) spot is filled for this nonsense.

This is horrifying, yet unsurprising.

When my now 14 year-old was just a smidge over 2, he thought it would be great fun to take all the covers and pillows off my bed, pile them up at the bottom, then run the full length of the bed and jump into them. (I only learned exactly what he was doing later, as I was cooking dinner at the time.)

He misjudged a jump and slammed face first into my solid oak dresser, biting all the way through his bottom lip. Off to the ER we went, he had stopped bleeding and crying before we arrived, but the boy needed stitches.

They called the social workers for that, too. And the social workers were rude as hell and kept trying to get my husband and me to admit to abusing him. In the in-between, they spoke to my son and tried to get him to say that we hit him. His response was along the lines of “Don’t be stupid. I was playing NINJA!” He said the same thing after the docs administered a sedative so they could stitch him up.

This STILL wasn’t good enough, so there was a surprise visit from CPS two days later!

I don’t have a very high opinion of people these days.

Something similar happened to me. My youngest broke two bones at daycare, no the daycare wasn’t at falt, my son is just a very active little boy. The first break the hospital actually misdiagnosed as a sprained shoulder… it was a broken collar bone, They did make mention that it looks as if there was a prior break to the humerous in the xray… but he had never had an injury to his humerous. I knew his collar bone was fractured and kept insisting but they released us with nothing but a misdiagnoses. The next morning we went straight in to the PCM and were sent straight to an orthopedic surgen. Where we found out, he had a…. broken collar bone. (I asked the ortho to xray his humerous and told them what the ER claimed and she check and said she saw nothing of what the ER had said about a possible prior fracture to the humerous).

Fast forward to a year later. My son is at daycare, running and jumping around all day, jumps off the end of a slide and starts to scream and cry. The daycare calls us and my husband goes directly over picks him up and takes him directly to the ER (forgetting to wait for a statement from the daycare). When he gets in to the ER he tells them what all happened and when they ask if he’s had any prior injuries my husband told them of the fractured collar bone. 2 hours later, an no pain meds and my son’s leg not set (spiral fracture of the tibia), CPS shows up! The hospital called them claiming ‘Multiple Prior Fractures’!!! Remember they misdiagnosed the actual real fracture of the clavical (collar bone) as a sprained shoulder, and they claimed that there was a possible prior fracture of the humerous a year prior. I was LIVID, not only at that, but the fact that after 2 hours my husband had to ASK for my son to receive some sort of pain meds… The hospital claimed that there was no way my son got this fracture from jumping off a slide; they said he could have ran and played on this fracture all day and just ‘aggervated’ it when he jumped.

CPS ended up dropping the case after a full investigation, and I delt with the hospital for a year to have an amendment made to my son’s record with a statement saying that the term ‘multiple prior fractures’ be stricken from his record on that date due to a misdiagnoses made by the hospital.

I do not think a child’s health and well being should be set aside for an investigation and questioning to be done, how does that help the child? Even if the child was abused, does it help the child more to have to endure pain even longer to find out what exactly happened? It makes me sick to think of having to sit for no reason with out at least pain meds, I’ve had broken bones I know what it feels like without pain meds.

That’s just sickening. Abuse by the hospital. There’s no excuse to make treatment wait so long over the lack of a social worker.

I much prefer how things were handled when my son managed to gash his face right near his eye during a bath one night. They merely asked us what happened, and mentioned that future injuries could result in a CPS visit. No big deal, they recognized it as an accident, but have to go with the law on reporting.

This is disgusting. Doctors take an oath to help people. To let a child in pain sit right there in front of them is a violation of that oath.

And to make it worse, I wonder if the parent getting loud and belligerent would make onto the CPS report.

Ok, I agree with all of you and it is extremely ridiculous to let the child wait untreaded and to suspect abuse immediately, while performing abuse themselves…
But why give your kid such hot soup that can cause bad burns???
This reminded me of the ridiculous story of the lady who sued the fast food chain for giving her that hot coffee in the drive through and she burned her lab spilling it……

sigh

Re: Hot Coffee

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald's_Restaurants

Careful before you blame the victim.

Reading these comments has been very instructive. My first thought was that this was an isolated incident. Now, I think this is cause for a movement! How many hours have been spent in needless suffering and worry over sick policies like this? Do people realize that most accidents are . . . accidents??

When I took my kid to the ER for a cut on her head, the woman who spoke to me said, “I recognize you, haven’t you been in here recently?” I had not; otherwise I can only imagine how much longer our 6-hour ER visit would have become. And, that probably will play into my decision whether to use the ER in the future. Is that best for my kids? Well, it depends how you define “best.” Being visited by CPS and judged for who knows what – my being a single working free-range mom for starters – and having a case file – doesn’t strike me as “best” for my family.

Please post information about the state and hospital in question so we can stay far, far away from both.

My apologies for the excessive use of “pretty” and the typo – it should have been “when CPS got sicced…”

I was babysitting my niece & nephew on night. They were rough housing and my nieces arm got badly twisted. She was in so much pain I was worried it might be broken and took her to the local hospital just to be safe.

I spent more time being questioned again and again about how it happened as if they were trying to find a loophole in my story, than they did treating her

It was a little hospital in rural Australia, we were the only patients there at the time and it still took us 3 hours to get her treated and her wrist strapped (it was sprained). They were almost not going to release her into my care because I wasn’t her parent, but luckily my brother came along about then and sorted it all out.

It makes me feel so relieved (knock on wood) that my two girls have never had an accident in which a hospital visit was warranted. There are little ones who do need the CPS to advocate for them, but it chills me how the governmental authorities have so much power over parents.

Let’s DO keep in mind that we are short of verifiable facts for this particular case. This IS how urban legends grow.

AZ — when my son was about four, he 2nd degree burned his elbow in hot soup — soup that was perfectly fine to eat (we were all eating it at the time), but not good to stick your wool-sweater-covered elbow in.

Stuff happens.

I agree, the family should sue — not to get money but to change the policy and create a national embarassment. That is horribly abusive.

A close friend’s daughter recently had an accident that WAS the fault of an adult family friend– not abuse but simple stupidity (the door to the car wasn’t closed, the girl fell out and sprained her leg… the incident was witnessed by five or six people). At the hospital, they did NOT wait any time — they were rushed right in and treated. Then they were forced to stay at the hospital for TWO DAYS (which was certainly medically unnecessary) while the hospital brought in a series of social workers, etc, to determine it was OK to send the poor girl back home. Not as bad as waiting to treat until the social worker clears the case, but it was still time in the hospital for a little girl who could have been recuperating at home.

But that is nothing compared to the story posted here. I think we should send this to CNN immediately.

hmmm, in 4th grade, I managed to cut my forehead by running into a bookshelf at school, I was running to turn in my homework before the teacher got to the homework pile. another time, at home, I somehow cut my head with a sledgehammer thing while my dad was doing yard work. I needed stitches both times. I was in elementary school at the time, almost 22 now.

My paternal grandparents always talked to mom about all the cuts and bruises my brother and I got from playing around. They stopped that when I managed to break my leg right in front of my grandmother. I was about 5 at the time and the doctor didn’t believe my leg was broken until it moved.

When I was a toddler, I managed to pull something heavy on top of myself and had to go to the er, nothing broken.

I’m still a bit clumsy though, but it’s not as bad as it used to be. In fact now I get paranoid about sharp edges or sharp points sticking out, for good reason.

Incidentally, at the age of 9 or so, I was running in the woods at my cousin’s house, at NIGHT-TIME, chasing fireflies. I didn’t realize there was a barbed-wire fence in the woods to establish property lines, and I ran right into it–it just barely missed my actual eyeball, and I did indeed need to go to the hospital.

As best as I remember it, I was treated quickly–and my mother wasn’t interrogated for potential abuse, nor criticized as reckless for allowing me to run in the woods at night-time–and I am of the thought that such was correct, she shouldn’t have been, nor should current parents and/or children be either.

LRH

My father was always in charge of taking me and my sister to the ER. He was a cop, knew all the nurses well, and we always got fast service because of it. But over the course of my years at home I racked up: a cut foot, 2 possible concussions, a broken nose, scraped the top of my mouth very badly with a wooden flute (don’t ask), a sprained shoulder, and a badly scraped face that warranted attention to avoid scarring. My sister managed stitches in her thumb, second degree burns on both hands (someone dumped charcoal ashes at the park, she was 2 and thought it was sand), a broken collarbone, and probably at least one other ER trip I am forgetting. The nurses just rolled their eyes when ever he came in and said “Which one this time?”. My parents also managed between them a dislocated shoulder, a cracked vertebra, a sprained knee, a nearly severed finger, another tip of the finger cut off with scissors, and a couple of car accidents. Genetically, we’re klutzes. Fortunately, clearer heads prevailed in those days and my loving, though klutzy, parents were never accused of anything.

When I was about 2, I woke up in the night crying. We lived in a strange little 2 story house, with steep narrow stairs. My mom was carrying me downstairs and tripped. Rather than land on me as we both fell down the stairs, she pushed me in front of her where I ended up breaking my foot. She promptly took me to the ER, where I, as an early talker proclaimed “Mommy threw me down the stairs” Fortunately, this was the early 80s and social workers weren’t as rabid as they are now. They pulled my mom aside and talked to her about it and asked me questions about it and eventually figured out what happened. If a kid in this decade said that, the parent would have been in jail moments after it happened, instead of intelligently questioned.

@Kim, not setting SOP here. Even on adults, the ER refers all casts to ortho. Unless skin is broken, there isn’t much point in going to the ER for a broken bone. Of course, there is pain management to consider but it isn’t like they really give good pain meds anymore, because of drug seekers and so forth.

To echo a caution that has been pointed out a couple times, I would be hesitant to crucify the hospital over a third hand account – emotions can distort details a lot.

That said, there are enough first hand accounts listed here to point out the worst-first mentality regarding hospital visits.

What makes me so sad is that we’ve strayed from the strongly held constitutional judicial belief that one is innocent until proven guilty. It sounds like CPS is given the power of investigator, judge and jury, with the allowance to lead young, naive witnesses to falsely incriminate parents. All in the name of preventing child abuse. Although its a noble pursuit, and at risk of sounding callous, I would rather the occasional parent “get away with” some physical abuse, then ANY innocent parent losing their child, even if its only temporary. I would hope with the presumed innocent philosophy, the serial abusers would eventually be vetted out and the innocent, loving parents would not have these ridiculous and horrible scenarios.

I had a social worker show up on my doorstep over a school “test” run by volunteers because we refused to have the child retested by them while the child was still sick. The original test took place while the child was sick. We were under medical doctor’s orders that if anything abnormal showed up again for that specific type of test to go see our family doctor first and then get referred back to the specialist if more investigation was needed. Nope, the volunteer put in a complaint and the social worker showed up at the school, interviewed the kids, then showed up at our door – within 10 minutes of a hard boiled egg exploding in my hand, burning it badly and every single other spot the way too hot egg touched. Social worker in question refused to allow me to leave for the hospital and seek immediate treatment. I had done the first aide, but the fire in my hand was not stopping and it kept on burning. They blocked the car with theirs and finally, I couldn’t handle the pain anymore, we forced our way out the door so that I could go get medical treatment.

I was lucky – small second degree point burns on my hand, the rest was all first degree (painful, but not dangerous). It took three months for my hand to stop hurting on a daily basis and you can still see where one of the blisters was.

The social worker in question decided to make our lives a living hell for 6 months because I put my medical needs ahead of her authority. I trumped her authority with my minor-to-her-medical-concern. What made it worse was that it was something that needed to be treated at the hospital. She demanded that I respect her authority, and we, my husband and I, both said no and pushed our way out of the house, out of the driveway and to the hospital. I am pretty sure she and her partner followed us as well.

Later the same day of the burn, another two social workers, and a police officer in tow, showed up to do the instant interview and I got cut off from my husband and questioned about whether or not he abused me.

All this because some quasi medical testing person decided that following doctor’s orders what not what I was supposed to do.

My hand is fine now, btw, no thanks to the social worker. The previous burn ended up being a major third degree (the size of a US dollar) with staph infection, on a part of my body that doesn’t get a lot of use. Loosing the use of one of my hands – that was not a good thing.

If social workers prevent medical treatment, put in a complaint with their supervisors and, if it was in the hospital, the head of the hospital, the board of directors and anyone else you can think of. Not getting treatment in time can make injuries worse, life threatening or even life altering. Policy be damned, if that was my child in the blog post, I would have seen a lawyer within 48 hours to sue the hospital for negligence and anything else they could think of.

This post has made me mad all day. And while yes, there may be some confusion about it all (but I doubt it) like others have said, it has happened (or near enough happened) to other people that I know it could happen to us. So we will take some pain killer before heading to the ER. Assuming I have the state of mind to think of it.

Right before we moved, and we all were recovering from swine flu (which required an ER visit for my son who had an asthma attack – they took him in before anyone else – we hardly sat down) my daughter was running in the dark with a friend one last time, and cut her leg open really deep. I took her to the Urgent Care, which was going to close in 10 minutes. They took her in, stitched her up, and were there an extra 45 minutes beyond closing time.

Then we moved. My new doctor’s office also has an Urgent Care, advertised on their sign to be open from 7 am to 8 pm, every day. Except I learned the hard way with a pulled muscle, that they don’t take patients after 7:30, or sometimes at 7:00 pm, when I came in another time at 6:45 and they had a couple people ahead of me. It seems like false advertising to me, but pales in comparison to this post. Had my daughter hurt herself after we moved at the same time, we would have had a 4 hour wait or more at the ER as the population has outpaced the abilities of the hospital.

If this is protocol, whether it is legal or medical, it is absolutely absurd and bogus. There is no kind of protocol that confuses spilled soup and abuse.

this is disgraceful!

When my daughter was 2 my parents came for the 4th of July and we went to their hotel to swim. My daughter didnt want to leave, so while we were walking down the hall, with my husband holding her hand, she just dead dropped to the floor. He didnt let go, and she got nursemaid’s elbow (pulled a ligament or tendon or something out of place) she was crying and screaming that daddy hurt her, which I said “daddy didnt hurt you on purpose” but we were so nervous taking her to the hospital because then she started saying “daddy hurt me on purpose”. Thankfully, we had a doctor who knew what it was and told us it was one of the most common childhood injuries, and he could tell lit was an accident. I’m glad it wasn’t at this hospital or we may never have been able to bring her home!

To all the people sick to death with this go to parentsrights.org They are trying to stop this garbage.

I was a reasonably quiet kid, but I still managed to crack while riding my tricycle down a ramp (against a brick wall). I also managed to fall while playing hide and seek on a campsite — with my hand straight on a tent pin and I once pulled a heavy table down onto my wrist in an effort to win a game at a scout meet. With all these incidents, I received treatment as soon as I got to a doctor and they all asked ME what happened. No social workers. Someone actually trained the doctors to ask the right questions.

To make matters even worse, when I was ill in Hungary, one of the doctors treating me managed to diagnose a condition that had dumbfounded several doctors back home. The Hungarian hospital smelt horrible, but I liked that Doctor a lot. He actually cared enough to help.

Appalling.

Also appalling is Evelyn’s story near the top of her niece needlessly and excessively irradiated at age 2 to detect previous fractures, ‘just in case’.

And socialjerk’s case involving the child who fell while napping on a bed – seriously, a year of counseling and training for poor judgment in letting a child nap on a bed?! But, for me even worse than the ‘sentence’ is the lack of discretion that the social worker closest to the case should have. It’s a zero tolerance policy toward poor judgment. We would all be in mandatory parenting classes were it evenly applied.

bah bunch of idiotic professionals

It makes me wonder just what proportion of helicopter parents are actually afraid of this kind of treatment or non treatment of their children and themselves.

I noticed there’s another Evelyn on here heh, I’ll change my name to Evelyn S

Also- it’s not like we have an abundance of safe housing alternatives for even the kids who are really abused. There are limited numbers of good foster families out there,and kids in dire straights need them!
There are lots of bad places kids can get stuck- the benefit has to outweigh the negatives.

I know most CPS workers don’t have time for stupid shit, and really care- but the sad fact is all it takes is ONE that doesn’t like the way you do things……

i just googled parentsrights and found this http://www.parentalrights.org/ I’m guessing that’s the website Dody was referring to

Kylie,

I am sorry to disillusion you. Honestly, I wish your view were accurate here. As someone who has spent too much time in ERs and hospitals, I dearly wish things here resembled what you described.

To start with, triage nurses here do not start treatment. At all. Then, even if they do flag the case as a priority, it then comes down to what room, time and priorities they have going on in the back, and not what she decides up front – unless it is a code situation.

Unfortunately, even in situations that have nothing to do with abuse “concerns”, it is not unheard of for a screaming child to still not be seen for an hour or more, or to not even get triaged until they have been there for close to that.

These stories don’t make the news. More’s the pity. But they are out there. They happen. They don’t seem so shocking (though it is completely appalling) to those who have already dealt with a system where common sense and efficiency and concerned patient care do not always seem to be a priority.

I did talk to some (several) RNs and other professionals about this, after reading it. While they were horrified by the idea of it happening, and insistent that things are different in our state, they were not shocked or disbelieving. It is not so off the mark for what is known to happen that it seems impossible.

If your social workers are anything like ours the whole bunch need sacking. There have been literary hundreds of children put up for forced adoption on the grounds of “possible future emotional abuse”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/7840835/Mother-whose-children-were-taken-for-adoption-joins-class-action.html
Now how can anyone prove that in the future they may not emotionally abuse their child? My mother knew someone who’s daughter came close to loosing a baby from an accusation of phyically abusing a child despite the doctor sayiny the baby had brittle bone disease (that is common with that disease as well. My sister was friends with a woman whose husband was a lawyer, their baby boy srunched his body up to the top of the cot and manage to push the top of his head against the bars leaving a dent they where too scared to take the baby to hospital (he was ok though) Lastly do you remember the abuse case in Aukney where any child who didn’t say they where abused was accused of being an abuser. We panic about possible child abuse take children who are not being abused while ignore the ones who are.

Oh yeah, while I’m here…

On one of those programs like Extra or Inside Edition a few weeks ago, they showed a woman from somewhere in New England who had her newborn baby taken from her, while still in hospital.

The hospital gives every mom-to-be a drug test, and that morning, she ate an Everything bagel, which had poppy seeds on it. Her father bought her the bagel, and they even showed the shop on TV.

Later that day, she went into labor. The hospital gave her a drug test (apparantly, they automatically give every mother going into labor a drug test) and she tested positive for opiates. Her baby was taken from her, but she got him (I think it was a boy) back a few days later.

What I wanna know is, WHY is a hospital automatically drug testing all the expectant mothers? They’ve done no wrong, they’re just there to have a baby. I would understand if the woman was a convicted drug abuser, and was on probation, but this woman was none of the sort.

Another case of overzealous CPS. There has to be a happy medium, but who knows if they’ll ever find it.

Kylie all I can say is the US is not Australia. This story doesn’t surprise me in the least. The bit about the social worker surprises me but a 3 hour wait in the ER is the norm not the exception. In a country where millions of people use the ER as their primary care physician, it tends to be crowded.

@Lenore…

I just bet you’ve been dying to use the word “phlebotomist” in a column for ages.

A few contributors have used the word “professional” with regard to social workers. For some it’s a two year diploma. It contains little or no clinical content. They’d have to be damn good at their job for me to view them as professionals.

This hospital situation is curious. Initially I would have preferred to think it’s a third party report only and quite possibly exaggerated or the result of the actual cause of a wait being mis-identified.

Then several others chime in with similar stories?

I’m disturbed if this has happened once. How bizarre. The diagnosis – not to mention necessity – of trained medical practitioners is deemed secondary to a subjective diagnosis relating to those NOT the injured child, BY somebody who in all likelihood is unqualified to diagnose anybody of anything.

I wonder if somebody in the area concerned(Lenore?) shouldn’t get on the phone and ask a direct question about such “policy” of a few hospitals. Is it actually policy in any of those hospitals? Is it theirs’ or is it being enforced by an overseeing government quagmire or statute?

Observers from afar are interested.

So might be the odd journo or media boffin nearer to home. Not to mention the occasional politico.

I’m sympathetic to Kylie’s sceptism. No, Australia is not the US, but I live in East London and my experience of the hideously overstretched NHS is that while I would expect to wait for hours if I turned up to A&E with a broken leg, my children have always been seen promptly, with fairly serious but certainly not life-threatening illnesses. I’m not saying that things aren’t different in the US, I’m just saying I understand why someone would believe there is more to this story than meets the eye and that belief is not merely just because someone is has not experience of overstretched medical systems.

(I could tell you other horror stories about the NHS such as being kept on hold for at least 10 minutes after dialling 999 without any triage or initial contact at all (someone could have been dying) but that’s another story).

However, whatever we don’t know about the story – the injury was deemed minor, etc, etc, etc – if it is true that the doctors were waiting around for the social worker to arrive, then that is just insane. There are no circumstances in which it can be justified. In terms of “preserving evidence”, can a social worker tell whether a hot liquid has fallen on a child accidentally or on purpose?

@Donna and @KLY – I definitely agree that Australia is not like the US and that you have a different health system. However, our triage system is the same and I work at one of the three busiest A&Es in this country. We see traumas and we always have codes running out back. We start treatment at triage because your chance of getting on a trolly if you’re not dying right now is pretty much nada! I’m still saying that a child + a burn + pain = immediate treatment. Even if we were doing it on a blanket on the floor. 3 hours is not considered much of a wait time in our department either…. often people will wait for up to 8 hours to be seen inside the department. That’s why analgesia, fluids, IV a/bs etc will be initiated in the waiting room. Screaming children are not really a concern; they have a patent airway and that’s what matters. Screaming with pain, or irritable and inconsolable (? head injury) is another matter. Triage nurses are normally very experienced, there is no way that any health care professional would not provide burns treatment while waiting for a social worker review. That would be like not providing medical care to a patient with borderline personality disorder who had cut an artery whilst self harming while waiting for an emergency mental health assessment. The idea is so absurd to me and that’s why I find it so hard to believe that this story is true.

Kylie, I admire your belief in the idea that people will do what is right, for the good of the child, and that this could not happen. It speaks to a strong ethic, and a prevailing belief in goodness and common sense.

That being said…

I am currently posting this from my hospital room. My visits to the ER and the doctors started very young, and have spanned multiple states. I am a mother who has also taken my own child to the ER, and a good number of my friends are parents who have also dealt with emergency services. Too many in my life have also dealt with social workers and a system that is intended to protect children and has degenerated, in too many ways, into a bureaucracy built on paranoia and not on any sort of common sense.

I am happy to hear that it is so absurd to you that you have trouble believing it. All too many times, there is outrage but with a resigned acceptance in people, here, about how this is “just the way things are now”. People stepping in with a fresh view that this is preposterous, and saying so, is what might be needed to help some people “snap out of it” and to raise awareness of things that need to be seen, addressed and – hopefully – changed.

And, truly, triage nurses here to not treat. Life threatening situations (involving breathing difficulties, chest pain, and excessive bleeding) are sent back immediately. Broken bones, ambulatory burns and head injuries on a conscious patient, as well as less-major bleeding, are flagged to jump ahead in line, but still wait. Children in pain, where it is not seen as life-threatening, are not generally given preference in this hierarchy. This is what makes it not seem unheard of that a child would be left waiting, and in pain; and the familiarity so many here have expressed with social workers being called in over and above the needs of the child should explain why it is not hard for us to believe, in light of these factors, that this could happen.

That’s the scary part: how few people are surprised by this. We may be mad and horrified… but there is not a whole lot of *surprise*.

I hope that it always seems impossible to believe, for you, and I hope we can get back to a day were people here would be just as dubious.

Capitals are not really necessary Donna, this is a forum where everyone’s opinion is welcome.

I apologise. I haven’t been very clear, sorry. We use a triage scale based on the US triage system. We do initiate treatment in the triage area… but not as part of the triage process. So the area itself is not one and the same as the triage process. We are very lucky not to have to deal with the insurance drama stuff that you guys are faced with, definitely. But like over there, the triage nurse is generally just taking the details and assigning a triage category. Unless we’re out there by ourselves, then we do both. Depending on the presentation sometimes treatment will start before triage and KLY, yes you are right, those are pretty much the presentations that would get you straight out back (plus a few others). A paeds burn in our department, definitely. Unless it was very minor. But if the child presented as initially stated and especially hot fluid spill onto a lap where genitals could possibly be affected – that would warrant an immediate inspection.

Donna, I also have a take on the situation. But like yourself, its only a guess. That’s why I would be interested in hearing the whole story. That’s all.

“We use a triage scale based on the US triage system.”

Kylie,
If your system is based on what our system is supposed to be like, and you feel this would never happen there…
May I request that you and some of your fellow nurses down there please come up here and help remind folks how it is meant to be? Heh. It sounds like your department has managed to hold on to more common sense, and possibly compassion as well, compared to where our system is now at (in a widespread sense). We could use some of that.

I am serious when I say I truly hope ya’ll manage to hold on to that. It is heartening to hear that you feel your fellow medical professionals would be right there with you in protesting, if this were to happen there.

This sounds odd. I mean, hospitals DO treat patients. And if he wasn’t emergent and they were busy … he would have to wait. If the dad didn’t do anything, it’s because he possibly assumed that his son wasn’t seriously injured and would wait his turn. If the hospital had triaged him as not needing care just yet … I mean, I don’t know how bad the burns were, but there seems to be more to the story that we aren’t hearing. As is often the case.

When I took my kid to the ER, there was one person doing intake and there was a guy hogging the area in front of the window, having a chat that was not necessary to anyone’s emergency treatment. I was polite about it for a while, thinking they would see me standing there holding my bandaged preschooler in my arms (with my other preschooler underfoot) and move along. Finally I decided that this was one of those situations where you simply have to be a bigmouth, and I butted in. It still took us over 5 hours to get out of there. Luckily someone had done first aid on her before we went to the ER, so no harm was done by the wait – but what a pain in the butt. And it wasn’t even crowded.

If true, this is truly horrible — so truly horrible, that I’m skeptical it’s true. I’m wondering if there’s more to story, or if it is simply wildly exaggerated. If not, then the hospital needs to be sued and someone should probably be sued for negligence. You don’t wait 3 hours to treat a pediatric burn victim to conform to some policy about a social worker (how can there be a policy that a child must see a social worker BEFORE emergency treatment?). It’s implausible to me, and as it is heresay, I will for the moment take it with a considerably large grain of salt. It may be true, it may not. It may be partially true.

On a side note, I am kind of curious as to what a 6-year old was doing eating a bowl of extremely hot soup at almost 10 at night. Most 6 year olds I know, including mine, have an 8 o’clock bedtime, 9 at the latest, which doesn’t really correspond with a 9:30 hot soup time.

When I was a kid, and I broke my collar bone, I had four different doctors or nurses ask me how I broke it. I got tired of telling and re-telling my story (which was admittedly strange, because I had taken a silly and peculiar risk that ended in the breakage), but only later realized they were checking for consistency in the event of abuse. But I was certainly treated immediately, and there was no social worker involved.

I have (thank the Good Lord and knock on wood) surprisingly not needed to visit the ER for my children yet. I have had to call Poison Control three times in a year, and I was very worried the third time that they’d be calling CPS, but they were great help and very nonchalant all three times and did not try to make me feel in the least guilty. No ER visits recommended for any of those calls.

] Further, I’ve never been in an ER that triaged you in under an hour unless you arrive via ambulance

And I’ve never been to one that hasn’t. I’ve been to ERs in three different states, never by ambulance.

A lot of people seem to have the feeling that because they’ve had different experiences, and because it seems too horrible, it must not have happened, or it must be wildly exaggerated.

Well, if you look through this thread, you’ll see a lot of people have not had pleasant experiences with ERs or with Social Workers. There are a lot of folks who sympathize, because they have been on the facing end of something similar. It is wonderful that many are saying they have never faced anything like it, or that things were better run when they have had to deal with the ER, but I do not think that just because your experience(s) have been different that it is cause to dismiss those saying they have been through hell in this area.

I am glad we have not reached a point where something like this is so universal that everyone has observed it for themselves, but ignoring the voices saying “Yes, this sort of thing happens, and it seems to be getting worse” is not going to solve problems. The point of this should not be “well, my experiences were fine, so I don’t think it is as big a problem as you say… even though you say you’ve been through it.”

I’m a bit saddened by the tendency to question, doubt or blame the parents, as well. Because, you know, we aren’t facing enough questioning and judgement as parents already or anything. It seems too horrible to want to believe, so we question the parents, the story, and – by extension – Lenore for sharing it with us. Of course we don’t have all the details, but the tendency to immediately assume this could not have happened at all like it has been told is tragic. That is the sort of blinder-thinking that can lead to each and every one of us being doubted, dismissed and judged, should *we* find ourselves in a horrid situation like this. Trying to say it couldn’t have been not as bad as it seems ignores the fact that the mother was not told “we assessed this and will treat him in order of priority/as soon as we have room” (or just pointed at the “priority policy” sign, which is the other standard answer)… she was flat out told the reason he was not seen was because the social worker was not there yet. How is it okay, in any way, that is was even a factor?? To do a standard questioning/check, while the child is being treated is one thing… but this is what she was given as a reason for his not being seen. This means that even if the burns were not assessed to be severe, he was still made to wait specifically until a social worker arrived.

As for the idea that if it really happened, someone would have sued or made a stink… it is notoriously hard, actually, to sue a hospital unless one has a lot of money. I am personally very aware of a couple cases of hospital + social worker horror (though, they are not my stories to tell publicly), and even with seemingly clear-cut wrong-doing and/or endangerment, finding a lawyer to take it on is pretty much impossible. It is also difficult to get a story like this picked up. You may have noticed that the media’s attention is not generally on this side of things. That is why Lenore is doing what she is doing… because someone has to be a voice out there.

As for the questions about the parenting in general, there could have been any number of reasons for the child to be up and eating at that time. Mine was often up late… it is just how things worked out sometimes, and it was what worked for us. Not everyone has the same idea about schedules for their families, and things happen. Also, as someone else pointed out, soup hot enough to burn, especially a sensitive area, can easily be comfortable enough to eat. I know my child was always really picky about her soup going cold, and so we served it hot and she would blow on spoonfulls *just* enough. I’m just not sure what any of those points have to do with the story, or why there is a tendency – here of all places – to pick apart a story and go after what the parents may or may not have been doing differently from you.

When I was a kid my siblings and I had hospital visits in a short time span of each other(especially with my bro), and a social worker popped up at the house a few days after my sis went flying through a glass door(don’t ask). My did had her arm cut straight to the bone by broken glass. Could you imagine if they waited for a social worker to see her before they stitched her up?

I sure hope kids with life threatening injuries don’t have to go through what that poor kid did. Stupid stupid people.

the average wait time in an er is three hours, often more. so the idea that the social worker was tying things up seems a bit funny to me. and since all the social worker can do is ask questions, there is no point in that talk taking place before treatment can begin. the questions can easily be asked after treatment has taken place.

side note: I am a social worker that did crisis intervention in an er. We got called on all psych cases. Guess what? The er doc had to make that referral, meaning the person had to be seen by the doc first to determine the referral. Can’t see how that protocol would be changed here.

This is the negative side of mandated reporting. In my training to become an MFT, we are told that we don’t investigate any possible child abuse, we just report it. And if we (or someone else who may see a client we work with) suspects abuse, they too are required to report it, if there is even an inkling in their minds that abuse could be present.

Ultimately, people take a “cautious” approach in that they report abuse “just in case,” so they themselves won’t be responsible (and thus liable to lose their license/get fired/).

Which is stupid. We should look out for abuse, but again, we should be allowed to exercise the common sense and decency we are told is so important to our job as therapists. Then along comes some zero-tolerance black-and-white rule that negates all the varied shades of gray that make up real life. Sad but true, and hopefully an attitude that will eventually change for the better.

What scares me is how individual this is. Maybe on another night at the ER more reasonable people would have been working. People who would not have blindly, dumbly followed a ridiculous policy, disregarding the well-being of the patient. These comments are full of examples of clear-headed, caring human beings who can THINK for themselves, working in the ER or as Social Workers. Thank god for those and hope they’re working when I next need the ER.

Several comments: I know several families, especially when the kids have evening activities, that eat a light meal late at night. The kids are hungry, so they all eat. Soup, a sandwich, something.

Triage: ER triage in the US can be horrible. It may not be the triage though, it might be how busy the ER is. The last time I was in the ER (my husband cut his finger badly), there was a teenage girl waiting to be seen. Brought by ambulance from a ski resort, mother by her side, she’d cut her leg badly with a ski pole. Pressure bandages were controlling the bleeding (mostly). She STILL waited for over 2 hours to be seen (was seen before us, of course), but the ER had been slammed by 3 codes due to a multi-car MVA, and there was no choice in the matter.

However, that being said: as a nurse, a mandatory reporter, and a mother, I cannot imagine seeing my child in pain with NO treatment for 3 hours. I can’t imagine letting it happen in an ER to my child. But, if I was a person who found hospitals intimidating, especially if then I was told they were waiting for a social worker, I am sure I would have shut up and said and done nothing that would have gotten me in more trouble.

One last thing: I would bet if it had been a mother who took the child in rather than the father, with mom missing, the child would have been seen earlier. Unfortunately, many ERs suspect fathers of abuse for incidents that would pass right by if it was a mother.

off topic, but have you seen this?
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201101/how-advise-and-help-your-kids-without-driving-them-or-yourself-crazy

I’m with Kylie and I live in the US. I have been in enough emergency rooms with my own children to know that they don’t wait until social services get there to treat children who are in pain. This is totally silly. Come on folks. How many of you have been to an emergency room with a child and how many have you has this happened to?

KLY, please believe me that I’m not scoffing or dismissing at all. Because I work in the same environment and have an understanding of the process, treatment, outcomes etc I am having trouble understanding how this could be protocol anywhere, let alone even legal if the story is exactly as recounted to, or by, Lenore. I think Lenore wants free-thinking parents, not just free-range kids, and would maybe even like the amount of debate that this topic has produced. I am definitely not dismissing but I do think, and hope, that there is more to this story. As a registered nurse, I would like more information.

🙁 🙁 🙁

I hope this story gets really ‘loud’ and gets something changed.

@Sky: Regarding this:

“On a side note, I am kind of curious as to what a 6-year old was doing eating a bowl of extremely hot soup at almost 10 at night. Most 6 year olds I know, including mine, have an 8 o’clock bedtime, 9 at the latest, which doesn’t really correspond with a 9:30 hot soup time.”

While my 6-year-old goes to bed at 8 (I stagger bedtimes, so everyone gets their story, and there’s no fighting over the bathroom), there have been some wacky nights where we have been stuck out somewhere, for whatever reason, and not gotten home until past everyone’s bedtime. If we haven’t eaten, guess what’s for dinner? We open a can of something we can nuke. I’m assuming that in this family’s case, it was soup.
At least they didn’t have him at a sit-down restaurant, where I see plenty of kids well past the hour of 10PM, even on a weeknight. Sometimes things happen that just keep you out late.

I would have called 911 they get processed immediately no wait or anything

It occurs to me that the first to do would be to put the kid in the shower (bring him in with me) and run it cold – through the clothing. Once good and soaked, remove the pants and continue.

And yes, walk out when the idiots aren’t competent.

And, while I don’t care for many lawsuits – I’d like to find a pro bono lawyer to try this one – hold out for punitive damages and a change in policy.

An anecdote. Infant daughter, sick and puking, 1AM at the local hospital (not the ER per se). MAle nurse tried three times to stick her for saline IV. I walked out, and slowly gave her water – 1/4 oz at a time.

Ironically, the sticks may have distracted the nausea response – “free treatment”.

Wife said later the nurse was stinking of booze.

There’s no guarantee that calling 911 will get a patient seen any faster, at least where I live. If you call an ambulance for a stubbed toe (and yes, people do call for that and even more minor complaints) you will be triaged just like a walk-in.

And if a hospital has a “policy” that injured children can’t be seen til the social worker arrives, then that policy probably applies to those brought in my ambulance as well. On the plus side, hopefully the EMTs/paramedics started some preliminary care.

I never think of stuff on the spot, but to snotty nurse:

“Sorry, we aren’t trash like you.”

Or, better:

” I’m so sorry your childhood was so traumatic. It must be difficult to live with being abused”

Or:

“Why don’t you find a colleague with a better attitude – I’ll wait”

Or:

“Thank you so much! I’d shake your hand, except my wrist hurts just now. A dose of insult makes my injury so much more memorable!”

It’s stories like this that worry me from time to time. When my now almost 5 year year old was 15 months old, he was severely burned and had to have skin grafts. Here’s the story: http://www.kxii.com/home/headlines/51534247.html

CPS came to talk to me the next day and as soon as she identified herself as a social worker, I was immediately frightened. Did they really think I hurt my son??? Fortunately, after I told her what happened she said it seemed clear that this was an unfortunate accident. Whew! What a load off my chest! However, every time I had to take him to the ER for an injury, I worried someone would question me and not believe me. Luckily I never had another encounter with CPS, but it’s in the back of my mind.

I’ll tell you what’s really bad about stories like this. It’s the comments from strangers. The news story has been archived and the comments don’t show up anymore, but we had people blaming us. “Where were the parents? Why did they leave a baby unsupervised? They ought to be charged and have their kid taken away! They don’t deserve to be parents!” I’ll tell you, my son was standing right next to my FIL walking with him. The charcoal had burned down so much that the briquettes were no longer visible, it was only ashy. It had rained that day and the area just looked like rain-soaked sand. Not that I have to justify it to anyone, but I got all these helicopter responses about my negligence. That hurt more than I can tell you. I get my feelings hurt easily, and I know these were strangers, but still…it hurt.