Should school call ambulance for a broken arm?

A broken arm , especially if its compound , can have serious effects to the entire system. KIDS CAN DIE FROM COMPOUND FRACTURES and it appeared there was only a school nurse??
Id be pissed too at the air headed nurses. What the hell was the parent gonna do bsides taking the kid to the hiospital and relieveing the school of any culpability.

Weve gotte too far on the PC scale.

The school is acting in loco parentis over all the children. Common sense would tell anyone in charge of the care of a child with a broken arm that a trip to the ER was necessary.
Don't want to use any school or employee vehicle?
Good.

Call 911.
Call the parent(s) and tell them what hospital ER.

Joe(get moving)Nation

I'm not seeing that...how is that PC?

I see this problem as an insurance and/or legal issue. We have become too much of a litigious society. Blame this on the courts and the plethora of ambulance chasers. The desire to sue at the drop of a hat is certainly a plague.

School systems reflect that issue by making sure they CYA. Though, for the life of me, I don't know of anyone who ever had a broken arm who got taken away in an ambulance.

However, I can recognize the emergent need as someone should get the child with a badly broken arm quickly to a hospital. Calling the parents is the first step. If they respond quickly, the parents should transport the child. However, if the parents can'tr respond quickly..someone had better get the suffering child to an ER.

It's a judgement call - depends on the nature of the break and the age of the child, plus, how it happened. If there is any danger of head or spinal trauma, definitely ambulance. In this case, I would have called an ambulance and then the parents. Edit: "severely broken, unnatural angle". However, if I was the parent, I would have called the ambulance myself.

When I broke my wrist, my father drove me to the doctor or hospital, can't remember which (back then doctors did everything in their offices), but when I broke my leg in gymnastics, they called an ambulance because I couldn't walk and was in severe pain.

Unnatural angle and screaming -- yeah, I'd call an ambulance.

I agree with farmerman about why.

We had an ambulance come when I was at volunteering at school once, it was an outdoor field day and somebody went head-first down a slide (against express instructions) and broke her arm. That seemed appropriate to me (to call an ambulance and have her checked immediately).

I'm not sure I'd go so far as to sue the school if it was my kid and they didn't call an ambulance -- I think it would depend on why. (As in, if a kid broke her arm and an ambulance wasn't called and in the interim between breaking the arm and getting to the hospital, a serious and avoidable problem came up.)

Yes I was kind of like that thought - I think if the parents couldn't get there quickly then the school should let them know, they would need to call an ambulance. I almost see this as a lose-lose situation for the school - if they called the ambulance, the parents may be screaming about the cost and/or whether their insurance would cover for it.

But since the child was not in dire need - I mean nothing apparantely happened than the normal arm break - as we would have heard about it in the article - I would hope though that the school told them she had broken her arm.

an ambulance can cost over a thousand dollars.

that's a large bill to foist onto people that may or may not have insurance...

I think they did the right thing, and are suffering the consequences of a parent with no perspective...

well it is tough to tell - as some parents (we've all seen them) are overally cautious. I'd imagine if they really scream and try to sue - then the hospital would be able to provide detail if this was a situation where an ambulance should be called. Also, kids are different - some scream when they stub their toe and others don't say a peep even when they are hurt pretty bad. But the unnatural angle - to be honest I don't know enough about that but would hope a school nurse would. Although if I was there with my child and it happened, I'd grab her and rush her in my car (not call an ambulance).

My daughter when she fell straight on her nose on the playground cement (man did it look ugly) - did not say a peep. She told me later, I didn't cry (although I really wanted to) because I didn't want to freak out my teacher.

Coincidently that same day/same class - a girl passed out - they did call an ambulance for her - they called me on my cell as I was driving to the school to let me know it wasn't for my daughter (I guess they could do without two panicky parents).

She ended up being fine and actually not taken in the ambulance - just a reaction to some medicine she had and being dehydrated.

You must not have refereed many soccer games in your life. Broken arms, ankles and bumped noggins~~~ every tournament, every year.
Especially on the high school level.

Joe(not many, but some, every year)Nation

most all kids have some form of school insurance(Its a lucrative field). Im stickin with my first call, as Joe said Get the kid to a hospital ASAP. Id hate to see there was serious internal bleeding from a veinous cut or nerve damage is the break was compound

I'll join voices with the others who think it depends entirely on the type of break. It will be interesting to hear how bad the break was. Don't all parents have to sign a waiver of liability for school?

For the most part, I don't think an ambulance is necessary for a broken bone.

Admittedly, I've not been around much of that sort of activity, not having kids and not been a participant.

However, that being said, I often think of that infamous event in NFL land...Joe Theismann's 'broken-leg-heard-round-the-world' when hit by both Lawrence Taylor and Carson. Never mind for him, you could've taken ME away in an ambulance after witnessing that one.

your first kid is made of fine wet paste porcelain china and needs to be watched because everything around her is seeking to do her harm.

Yournext kids are all made of iron and you only need to watch them if they play with exp[losives (cause you want to play too)

I certainly am empathetic.

they have somethin for that ya know.

It is tough to tell from the limited amount written in the article - but they did state the consider this on a case by case situation. If the nurse is qualified, she should have been in the position to make that call.

My husband coaching a middle school basketball team - during a practice one of the boys suffered an asthma attack (his parents never even told my husband their kid had asthma). He couldn't breathe, didn't have anything with him. Yeah they called an ambulance - to top it off the kid's parents were out of state and their cell phone mail was full and he couldn't get a hold of them.

Not fun stuff.

The problem with your comment is that the nurse may have been qualified to make that call, but for all we know the school may have implied to her that only extreme cases go to Emergency.

When I worked as a camp cook/medic, I was the only one to make the call for a helicopter, or if and when an injured person guy returned to work. However, every company made it clear I was NOT to call a helicopter ($$$$), but have the guy driven to hospital. Problem with that is no one provided the camp with a vehicle in which a supine person would fit. If there was a spinal issue, or badly damaged legs, the only way to transport is on a spine board... this is one of the reasons I quit - no support for their workers. I would have called a helicopter anyway but thankfully I didn't have to. The other thing is, we were often out in the hinterland and driving would have meant bumps and jarring - not good for a spinal or head injury and very painful for ribs, leg, and other injuries.

So, there may well be some politics going on.

In this case, I'd call the parents, describe the injuries, and ask if they wanted an ambulance or if they'd rather come and pick them up. If the parents are paying, it's really their call. The nurse could easily have asked the mother when she told her about the broken arm.

Again assuming what is stated here is correct and they hire a qualified nurse then they did consult the nurse: