Should school call ambulance for a broken arm?

Now granted I am going by my two personal examples when my daughter got hurt and then her classmate also passed out. Their policy was to call the school nurse at the nearby (walking distance) public school - her school was too small to afford to pay for a nurse so they had an agreement with the other school to use the nurse for injuries/emergencies.

For my daughter she checked her out and thought their was a potential for a concession so the recommendation of the nurse was to call the parents and advise to bring to the doctors.

For the girl who passed out (for no apparent reason the school knew) - the nurse's recommendation was to call for an ambulance.

Again - I realize I am making assumptions that what they state is correct. The nurse recommends whether an ambulance is called or not - and from what I've seen at other public schools in the state (seeing we recently changed and actually visited the nurse's office during an open house) - it seems standard in the state.

Again, my point was this nurse might be under instructions not to call ambulances; under political pressure at work, as I was.

And as I stated earlier, the call depends on the type of break, how it happened, and the age of the child.

And as I stated earlier, she could have called the parent, informed them, and asked for directions from them, ie. the parent could have phoned an ambulance. For all the nurse knew, or didn't know, that child could have had other issues not reported by the parents.

Not saying an ambulance WAS called for, but if I had been the nurse, I would have covered all the bases.

That's another problem with many public school systems and their obsessive need to curb the budget at all costs. One of the cutbacks in many schools is in the nursing department. Many schools only go with a part time nurse. Who knows what level of nursing this school nurse has. I guarantee its the lowest pay scale that the school could get away with ... ergo perhaps the nurse really wasn't qualified for these types of emergencies.

I do somewhat agree with a few others here and it's a tough one. Ambulance bills are insanely expensive and I can see how one would balk at the idea of passing that monster size bill onto parents who are already financially strapped. Given that it's a minor rather then an adult, the decision to call an ambulance should have been not taken for granted and thusly called to avoid any serious complications that the underpaid/overworked nurse couldn't possibly see coming with a broken arm.

I could see in this situation, that the school nurse when she calls the parent - explain what the appearance and symptons are - and then ask the parent if they want to call an ambulance or if they want to pick her up and bring her to the hospital/doctor.

I read my kids' school stuff and it is vague - I'd guess they have more details written out actually in the school polices, but not in the parent handbook. The only thing close is it says it is the parent's responsbility to transport the child if the child is ill; the school is not responsible (meaning they are not responsible to transport the child home when sick); and something along the lines that fire department/police would be called to transport if a parent cannot. It doesn't specify anything about injury, etc.

It might sound stupid, but don't schools have an insurance for (any kind of) accidents?
(Here, any pupil/student is insured from the moment she/he leaves the home until the return - equivalent to the work accident insurance.)

No - each state is different - although Mass requires everyone to have insurance - doesn't mean you do - as you can pay a fine instead and sometimes due to the high cost of insurance it is cheaper to just pay the fine.

Not sure if the schools have some sort of insurance that would cover for something like this - my experience is though - you provide the school with your child's doctor and insurance in case of emergency. Even with insurance though if they end up considering it a situation where an ambulance is not needed - you need to pay for it and some insurance companies won't cover the full cost you may have to pay a portion.

The funny thing is - maybe about 10 years ago - my husband was playing softball in one of the parks in this town we now live in (didn't at the time). He got injured as a result they town decided to put these big bolder type things in part of the field - on the edge of it most likely to prevent cars from parking or driving on that part of the field.

Well hubby jumped up to catch a ball (not normally playing this position) and came down on the huge rock. Fortunately they were playing with many fire fighters and emts - they said to call an ambulance because he could have internal injuries. Ends up he was just severely bruised - we got the ambulance bill. We simply sent it back saying to charge the Town as they were responsible and we would sue otherwise - we never heard back so they must have settled it with the town.

Ooops. The situation is even worse than I guessed.
(And here, of course the ambulance is paid by the school's insurance ... as would it be your own health insurance, if such happened outside school.)

Hairline fracture, call parents. Arm at visibly crooked angle, call ambulance (potential for blood clots, shock, severe pain to say the least. Plus the arm will have to be reset), then call parents.

I've just looked it up: we've got this kind of (mandatory, by the way) insurances since 1884: Statutory Accident Insurance

I tried to look for something similar - I couldn't find anything for my state - I just assumed as the school asks for your insurance information, if any medical treatment is necessary, your personal insurance covers it and the school isn't responsible. That isn't saying if the school did something neglictful they couldn't be sued or would have to pay - just for normal stuff that can happen for basically being a kid and playing.

I did see some states with mention insurance that covers injuries - it seemed more based on being involved in athletics at schools though.

So honestly I don't know for sure.

Well, such and anything else which happens between leaving home, being at school (or work) and getting home again is insured here, since 1884. (Or what happens at any activities by the school [or work].)

The school did the right thing by calling the parent first. It was not a compound fracture (did not break the skin), so calling an ambulance was not a clear-cut choice. By calling the parent first, the school gave her the opportunity to decide whether or not to call an ambulance (which can be very expensive, and some families can't afford that). If the parent wanted the child to be picked up by paramedics, she should have said so on the phone when the school called her to tell her what happened.

Yeah I wonder about that - how much did the school tell them over the phone? If they gave all the correct details, then the parents would be a position to say call the ambulance.

Agreed.

Me too. In fact, I had a remarkably similar broken arm in junior hig. The dean of boys drove me to the hospital and stuck around long enough to see that every thing was on track. No problems with Mother or anyone else.

Those were the good old days man. These days, you could be bleeding out of your neck, and be still waiting in the emergency room upon the fancies of the triage nurse rammed deep by the inefficient health care system.

You are an idiot. Plain and Simple. It's a broken arm. The nurse is monitoring the health of the child and she would obviously call an ambulance in an emergency. Nurses aren't idiots even if they paid below the grade. She didn't die. You are jumping to assumptions, oh my God, she could have died! Well she didn't and she could have just have easily been run over by a bus leaving the school. People like you cost our government money. Put your child in a bubble or homeschool your child if you have one? Our country is 17 trillion dollars in debt and if we don't stop worrying about PC bullshit like this we won't have any ability to provide your precious PC.

Yes

You get what you deserve.

Parents have made the public school system their bitch; with the help of trial lawyers.

Judgment by teachers and school administrators is to be avoided at all costs because judgment can be questioned and will be questioned by idiot parents and lawyers.

Instead we have "zero tolerance" policies and absolute adherence to all others.

Lawyers write or bless the policies from the standpoint of "How do we defend the school in a suit," and they then make it absolutely clear that to avoid any weakness in the defense, the schools must follow policy absolutely.

I don't think an ambulance was required in this case. but if it were, the same policy would have been absolutely applied (unless of course the nurse was something of a rebel who wasn't (rightly) concerned about her continuing employment.

Back in 1971 as a HS Senior I had the rare opportunity to have a very frank conversation with our Assistant Principle. I was about three days from graduating, he was my track coach, and we like each other. He shared a lot of secrets with me, but I will always remember him telling me:

Parents don't realize how much power they have, and thank God for that.

Eventually they did and as could have easily been predicted, they've abused it.