There just aren’t enough ways for kids to injure themselves these days. Kids today can move through childhood and never get to see their own blood. There is something just-plain-wrong about that. There is some truth in the boldest of lies Of course there are the incidental wannabe injuries or scrapes that only require Sponge-Bob Band-Aids or a hug–but real bleeding? Pretty rare.
One time, a long, long time ago on the farm, the cows were headed in the wrong direction and so I ran as fast as I could across the pasture to cut them off. They were headed straight to a nirvana of sweet alfalfa–ready to be cut for hay.
It was at this moment that I was unknowingly headed for yet another opportunity to see my own blood.
There was a barbed wire fence between me and the intercept with the errant cows. I had jumped over this fence many other times–no big deal. This time however, I was not fortunate enough to see the newly excavated woodchuck hole, exactly where I needed to plant my foot for the launch. I ended up wrapped up in the barbed wire fence, ripping my leg open like a gutted fish–all the way from my knee cap to the top of my foot. It is never a good thing to see one’s own bones.
Bleeding like the proverbial stuck pig, I made it to the farm house where my aunt casually bandaged me up and sent me on my way. LITERALLY–pretty much just like that! She washed the wound with soap and water until my eyes watered—this hurt much worse than the missed jump. There were no antibiotics given and NO stitches–and I had already had a tetanus shot from a previous misadventure with an improperly placed nail. That was some 55 or so years ago and I still have the nasty scars to attest to the cows getting their way.
Today, as an inspector, I routinely point out things on properties that could be a danger to persons on the property–children or otherwise. The litmus test I use as an inspector, to determine safety around the home is this: If a young child has a bunch of friends over for a sleep-over and they are chasing each other around the house–inside or outside–in the dark, are there any bears that will bite them? It becomes a question of: “where are the woodchuck holes and the barbed wire fences?”
It is never possible to foresee all eventualities–kids are kids after all. But I will point on things that seem obvious to me–like the things in the following picture.
I personally think these could be pretty nasty things to fall on in the dark—or in the daylight for that matter.
By Charles Buell, Real Estate Inspections in Seattle
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