Our Disney Trip to the ER

Emily holds the distinction of being our first child to make an emergency room trip, and our only child (so far ) to make an emergency room trip.

Her first trip was when she was 9 months old. We were in Utah for a wedding and had to take her to the emergency room in Provo where she was diagnosed with a collapsed lung.

This time she decided to end our Disneyland trip with a bang - literally. The last day we were there, we were waiting for the tram so we could go out and eat dinner, and Emily decided to sit on the metal railing. I told her to get down, and all I got was attitude and a "Why?" I told her she was going to fall and she was not behind the yellow line. So she scooted down the fence a bit so she was behind the line. I got distracted chasing Benjamin, and a few seconds later I hear my mom say, "Lisa, I think Emily really hurt herself." I turned around and there she was with her hand to her face and blood running through her fingers and down her arm. Apparently she did a face dive off the railing. My first thought was that I didn't have a tissue, blanket or anything to hold against her wound to stop the bleeding. (okay, if I am honest, that might have been my second thought. My first thought probably was something along the line of "you've got to be kidding, I just told that kid to get down 30 seconds ago, and now she's hurt?! Why couldn't she just mind?) My mom suggested that we take her down to the Disney Store in Downtown Disney and that maybe they would have something we could use, so we took the kids down there. In retrospect, it was kind of weird that no one around us said anything or tried to help us or even acknowledged anything happened. We were standing with a group of people leaving the park, and I can't imagine that nobody saw anything. Strange. Anyway, we took Emily to the Disney Store and asked the first employee we saw for help. She got on her radio and called for a nurse, got us tissue to hold on the wound and had Emily sit down and talked to her - I assume to keep her conscious. Other employees locked the door behind us and made an employee "wall" between us and any customers that were walking by. They asked Emily's size and brought her clothes so that she could change out of her blood stained outfit at some point. When the nurse got there, she cleaned her up and we discovered that she had cut open her eye brow. It had clotted, and the nurse didn't want to disturb the clot and try and clean it out because she didn't know how deep or dirty it was, so they sent us to the ER at the children's hospital. She said that with it right there at the eye, she could guarantee infection if we didn't get it cleaned up and treated right, and that it might affect the eye. She also thought we might need a plastic surgeon. Well, there went our last night at Disneyland. Benjamin, who we had just discovered was tall enough for the Matterhorn and had promised him a ride when we went back in, was sorely disappointed. But they were all very concerned for their sister's "broken" head and were very glad it wasn't them. I tried to take a picture of Emily's gaping wound on the way to the car, but she started getting upset, so I put my camera away.

You'll just have to picture this lovely princess (this is what she was wearing) with blood on her outfit, matted in her hair and all over the left side of her face. It was funny, though, because at the hospital all Emily was worried about was that they were going to mess up her hair (she had it done at the Princess Fair). She didn't want to lay down on the bed or anything until they assured her that they were going to do everything in their power not to mess her hair.

We were treated very well at the hospital. I didn't have any insurance information with me, and Alan didn't have the information at home (actually, I think he was asleep when I talked to him, because the next day when I called him he asked "Now which kid got hurt again?" If he had called me and told me he was on the way to the ER with any of the kids, I would have instantly been awake. Is this a man vs woman thing?), but they said not to worry about it. They actually let me leave the hospital with nothing more than my name and address. They didn't even ask for a credit card. She was treated fairly quickly. I guess being covered in blood must push you to the top of the triage (it had started bleeding again on the way to the hospital). Long story shorter, they fed her, entertained her, numbed her, cleaned the wound and stitched her up. Her wound was a centimeter deep and an inch long. She was embarrassed that she hadn't minded me and that she had gotten hurt like I told her, so she made me tell everyone how it happened.


This is how she looked the next day. We kept her stitches covered with a band-aid, and you can't really tell, but she had a black eye.
We made it home to Oregon without incident, and here are Emily's stitches and eye a few days later. I took the picture while Grandma touched up her hair. Together they made that princess hair last over a week.

Emily was very blessed. She had to miss PE, recess and gymnastics for a week and a half, but other wise she hasn't suffered much. She got her stitches out and the wound is healing nicely. She has a scar, but it is in her eyebrow, and you don't notice it unless you know it is there.