{"id":3374,"date":"2013-10-14T04:59:22","date_gmt":"2013-10-13T17:59:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/?p=3374"},"modified":"2015-04-29T12:09:56","modified_gmt":"2015-04-29T02:09:56","slug":"my-child-has-been-burnt-what-do-i-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/my-child-has-been-burnt-what-do-i-do\/","title":{"rendered":"My child has been burnt – what do I do?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Nyve1\"<\/a>This week’s blog for Community Safety Month tells the story of Nyve, who was rushed to the RCH with serious burns after an accident at home, and explains what you should do if your child is burnt or scalded.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Premkumar family started their Friday night just like any other, preparing a meal and settling down for a night in with popcorn and a DVD. Instead, this particular Friday turned out to be the beginning of a traumatic few weeks that would leave them thankful yet wishing they had known more about what to do in an emergency burns situation.<\/p>\n

Vicky Premkumar was busy preparing a dinner of wild rice for her family, whilst taking care of her youngest child, 10-month old Nyve. In a seemingly simple move to ensure she could take care of her daughter whilst cooking dinner, Vicky decided to place Nyve in her feeding chair in the kitchen. She turned her back for a second and what happened next was a freak accident and a cruel lesson that Vicky will never forget.<\/p>\n

\u201cNyve spotted a black cord on the bench, and she wanted to investigate. The cord was attached to the rice cooker, which was still cooking! I heard a sound, a heavy grating sound. I turned to find Nyve pulling the rice cooker towards herself. The rice cooker tipped over. Hitting the bench, the boiling contents of rice and water sprayed out, above, under and all around Nyve.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a moment of panic Vicky grabbed a St John\u2019s Ambulance First Aid magnetic book, which she had stuck to her fridge. Fumbling with the pages and with a million thoughts racing through her head, she managed to find a page on burns, which instructed her to hold her daughter\u2019s burns under cool running water for 20 minutes. Vicky ran to a tap but when she applied the cool running water to Nyve\u2019s burn, her daughter\u2019s screaming amplified.<\/p>\n

Vicky was hesitant to continue as she felt the treatment was hurting Nyve even more. Later, a doctor would tell her that \u201cparents think their child is in pain under the running water but, they are crying because they don\u2019t like what you are doing\u201d. In fact, those 20 minutes of cool running water is crucial to speed healing and limit scarring. Vicky says, \u201cit can be the difference between a superficial burn that heals naturally and a second\/third degree burn that requires grafting.\u201d<\/p>\n

After four frantic calls to her husband and applying running water to the burns for as long as she possibly could, Vicky\u2019s mobile finally rang. \u201cIt was my sister-in-law. She said \u2018have you called the ambulance?\u2019 No, I hadn\u2019t. Why had I not called the ambulance?\u201d Looking back, Vicky wishes she had known more about emergency situations like these. \u201cKnowledge is not only empowering but it\u2019s also very calming\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n

Nyve was rushed to The Royal Children\u2019s Hospital where Vicky and husband Sanjay were told she had second degree burns to her arm. The burns could not heal naturally and required a skin graft, which involved surgery. Vicky has an important message for all parents and carers of young children. \u201cIf you do not know what to do in an emergency situation, please please do a first aid course.<\/p>\n

I hope you never have to recall Nyve\u2019s story, but if you do, remember to stay calm, place the person or burn injury under cool running water for 20 minutes and call an ambulance.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more information on burns and scalds visit the RCH Safety Centre <\/a>website.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Little Nyve was rushed to the RCH with serious burns after an accident at home, this blog tells her story and explains what you should do if your child is burnt or scalded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-the-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3374"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4817,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3374\/revisions\/4817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}