9) A Terrible Accident

At the end of October 1966 Jonathan pulled a kettle of boiling water over himself. Up to that time it was the worst thing that had ever happened in my life. Jonny had just come home from work and was in the bathroom. I was making a cup of tea for us in the kitchen. Because we had realised the danger of the electric cord on the kettle being tugged at, Jonny had put a cup hook in the wall to hold the cord out of harms way. I boiled water and did not put the cord back on the hook, Jonathan was following me around in the kitchen and he reached out for the cord and the full kettle of boiling hot water spilled all over him. I just remember screaming, Jonny shouted at me to get his clothes off him and came running with a large towel that we wrapped around him and just got into the car and drove as fast as we could to the hospital, both Jonathan and I crying all the way. He was quickly seen by a doctor who gave him an injection for shock and bandaged him up. Thankfully the water had not touched his face at all and his body and legs were only slightly scalded. His left arm had taken the most of the water and it was heavily bandaged. I remember overhearing two nurses talking, one said “They have just brought in a baby that has pulled a kettle of boiling water over himself” and the other one said “Some mothers just don’t know how to look after their children” That really hit home, I know it was an accident and accidents do happen but I should have been more careful, it was stupid and irresponsible of me and I am just so very grateful that the damage was not worse. Once he was bandaged up he seemed fine, as perky as any thing and did not appear to be in any pain. The day after next he started vomiting and was clearly not well, I had no idea what the cause was and took him back to the hospital. He was seen by a different doctor that day and when he saw the bandaged arm he asked what had happened I told him and he asked why I had bandaged it up like that. I told him that his colleague had done it and he changed his tune a bit. I did not to believe that doctors covered up for each other until then. He was ready to tell me off but he did not criticise the other doctor. He told me that the vomiting was due to delayed shock and he wanted to take the bandage off. The dressing had stuck to the wound and they had to take my poor baby up to the ward and soak him in a bath of water to remove it. Once it was all off the doctor looked at it again and decided to admit Jonathan to the ward. He said that the best way to deal with the burn was for it to be open to the air and kept as clean as possible and the best place for that would be in hospital.

They admitted him straight away. The sister in charge asked me to bring in his bottle, as he was to have as much fluid as possible. I told her that he was drinking from a cup and would not take a bottle any more. She told me that he needed to have fluid all the time and so I was to go and buy him another bottle. I did that, but I was right and he would not drink from it so they had to give him his cup but of course as he was only 17 months old if he was left with the cup he just spilt it all over his cot, so he had his own personal maid. One of the African ward assistants was given the job of sitting next to him all day and getting him to sip from his cup as often as possible. When I think about it now I wonder why I could not have done that but in those days parents were not encouraged to spend much time with their hospitalised children, we were allowed to come in at visiting times but were thrown out when the bell went. Anyway his maid was wonderful to him, she had great patience and played and talked to him all day and got him to take as much fluid as possible. I was very grateful to her for being so good with him.

Once he was getting the correct treatment he started to heal quite nicely but there were two places that were a problem, the skin in the inside fold of his arm and the place on the upper arm that the original bandage had stuck to. It of course all healed eventually but he was left with a scar on his upper arm to this day and I have very mixed emotions when I look at it. I know it is a great blessing that it is not worse but I still wish I had been more careful.

I wonder do all nurses treat all mothers as if they are stupid or is it just me? I remember we used to go in at suppertime and feed him and put him to bed at night. One evening there was boiled eggs for supper and I asked the nurse if she could find something else for him, as he did not eat eggs. She took the egg from my hand and started to feed it to him giving me an “I told you so” sort of expression as he ate the whole egg. I was very proud of my son when as she wiped his face and hands he vomited the whole lot right over her nice clean uniform.

I remember that there were a couple of other children in the ward at the same time as Jonathan but I only remember the one little lad that had had the top joint of his index finger blown off in an accident with firework on Guy Falk’s night.

When he came home from hospital the wound on his upper arm was still not healed and used to stick to his clothing. A friend told me to get a tube of ointment that dried like a crust forming a cover over the open wound, I don’t remember what it was called but it was marvellous and from then on it just got better and better. It was quite a large tube of ointment and so it lasted for all sorts of first aid for a long time and when it was at last finished I tried to get another tube but it was off the market then. I often wonder why, it seemed so very good.