School Causes Girl To Get Frost Bite

And for the people that are making it sound like its not a big deal , if it was your daughter would you still think its not a big deal ? Would you say to her , you weren't out there long enough to get "real" frostbite .but you did the right thing for standing where you were told while the grown-ups followed the rules....good girl!

And you can get hypothermia in 80 degree water in case you didn't know that

reply to post by defcon5


I think we're talking about 2 different things. You're talking about frostbite (which she DID get in less than 30 minutes even with a sweater and a coat); I'm talking about hypothermia which in the conditions to which she was subjected could easily have occurred in 2 minutes. Hypothermia is life-threatening.

As for your scenario I'm expected to answer, I can think of no situation in which this would occur. Nurses have better sense than to leave only 1 nurse available for 2 critical patients. I once worked at a level 1 trauma center with the ICU located on the 9th floor. We had an actual fire that had been set in the oxygen closet where all the ventilator patients (12 of them) got their O2. All 12 of the patients were evacuated outside the building with ambu bags and their charts in 7 minutes and no one was damaged in the process. We recruited family members, ancillary staff and anyone within shouting range. We improvised. It was not the exact protocol but above all we did no harm and everyone lived.

In a tort lawsuit she only has to prove that the school had an obligation to provide for her safety; that she did suffer harm; that said harm was due to the school's action or lack of action. I think she's got a case. I'm a nurse, not a lawyer so we'll see how this plays out.

reply to post by defcon5


That chart you are throwing up is for an average american adult. Probably takes into account the obesity epidemic.

This is a child without the body mass or blood volume of an adult. Averages are all well and good for charts but useless in the real world. I went hypothermic once after 10 minutes in above freezing conditions after being thrown in a swimming pool.

We are all different! There is no average person!

I will say this. If my child was even severely shivering while in the care of a school they would know about it.

I don't care about the stages of bloody frostbite. You make it sound like it was all OK because they didn't have to amputate her foot.

Where is your humanity. A child was suffering. That should not have happened.

Fire the teachers! Charge the Principle with child neglect. Make an example of these people.

P

defcon5

hounddoghowlie
in my younger days i was volunteer firefighter and as well part of my time when i was in the Corps. i know all the all the drills and procedure of how to approach a emergency situation.

Then you should know better, and know that what I am saying is true.
You should know that people aren't in a life threatening situation for 10 minutes in the cold.
You should know that people immersed in freezing water live longer then that.
You should know that 10 minutes is not an unreasonable response time.
You should know what the “golden hour” is.
You should know how triage works.
You should know what its like to have confused or incomplete information on the scene.
You should know that people are trained to act in a certain way in an emergency so they do it by rote repetition, and that you don't expect them to “improvise” going away from that “plan”.
And...
You should know that when a news article leaves out “key” bits of information that the girl herself admits in the video that this is a sensationalist news “hack” job.

hounddoghowlie
when you have fifty teachers standing in a parking lot, while a wet half naked girl warped what is more than likely wet towel and a wet head.

And a students sweater... And a teachers coat...

hounddoghowlie
any one that says, they would do the same as these teachers are too. plain and simple.

Its not a matter of “rules and regulations”, its a matter of seeing the bigger picture here and understanding how short an amount of time that 10 minutes really is when you are dealing with that volume of people during a possible emergency.

hounddoghowlie
also time decrease in exposure as wind chill drops.

Yep, and according to NOAA, at 5 degrees with -25 windchill you have 30 minutes until you have significant chance of frostbite...

aw please lets all fall down and worship at the alter of the plan.

defcon5

Then you should know better, and know that what I am saying is true.

in some instances yes but not all.
there were several people at our firehouse including the chief( which is still there after thirty years) that didn't believe each and every situation require strict adherence to procedure . things can be quite fluid in some, and change in a instant. some can be quite clam and very little action. our job was was not only to access the situation and respond accordingly, but adapt if necessary. and we trained in this way, and we managed to do some remarkable things, like pull a few people out of houses,preform cpr, and save a few lives. and even saved a few chimneys.

defcon 5
You should know that people aren't in a life threatening situation for 10 minutes in the cold.

yes they can be, with a wind chill temp of -25 you never know how a individual will react to these temps, why take chances and some people react differently than others.
from my old USSATF guidelines United States Search and Rescue Task Force.

Any temperature less than 98.6 degrees can be linked to hypothermia (ex. hypothermia in the elderly in cold houses) or peripheral circulation problems such as trench foot and frostbite.
Mild Hypothermia - core temperature 98.6 - 96 degrees F
Moderate Hypothermia - core temperature 95 - 93 degrees F
Severe Hypothermia - core temperature 92 - 86 degrees and below (immediately life threatening)

again depending on the condition of a person factors change, whats one time frame for one is not the same for all. again i ask why take the chance, especially a non firefighter. that could and should taken responsibility for the child and accounted for her.

defcon5
You should know that people immersed in freezing water live longer then that.

again from ny USSARTF guidelines

Water temperature: 32 degrees or below Time until exhaustion or unconsciousness: Less than 15 minutes Expected time of survival in the water: Less than 15 to 45 minutes

you should know that all people are not the same. some may live longer some not.

def5con
You should know that 10 minutes is not an unreasonable response time.

that's a great time for a fire department to respond, but how do we know she was out there for only ten minutes. could have been longer who was timing this, you yourself know that time slows down or speeds up in these situations. remember news reports hack things up.

defcon5
You should know what the “golden hour” is.

yes i do to put it simply, to increase the chances of survival and minimize disability or save life .

look i could go on and on answering your you knows, thing is nobody wanted to take responsibility, to act differently than the plan states, which is not always the best case in which things should be done, for a non responder.

sorry it took so long to respond, i wanted to find my old guideline book been awhile since i seen it. i guess i could have went online, but i wanted to relive the good old days.

whitewave
You're talking about frostbite (which she DID get in less than 30 minutes even with a sweater and a coat); I'm talking about hypothermia which in the conditions to which she was subjected could easily have occurred in 2 minutes. Hypothermia is life-threatening.

What symptoms of hypothermia did she show?
Was there a medical diagnosis for her being hypothermic?
This is speculation.

As far as “frostbite”, you know as well as I do that doctors will agree with a patients diagnosis some times to justify a reason for their visit. She could have had simple first degree frostbite that is nothing more serious then a sunburn, and the doctor agreed with that so now its “news worthy”. Did she have blistering, did her skin change coloration? Heck, I've spent longer then 10 minutes in bare feet in the snow before, and I certainly didn't get serious frostbite.

whitewave
As for your scenario I'm expected to answer, I can think of no situation in which this would occur.

What difference does it make why it supposedly happened, just say it did...
That sounds more like you know the answer and you just don't want to admit it because it proves my point here. You darn well know that the way you would handle that is to throw a towel to the person bleeding and tell them to put pressure on it while giving the other person CPR. You going to tell me that your medical facility doesn't triage medical patients, and none of them ever have to wait while the greater needs of those in more dire situations are addressed?

whitewave
I once worked at a level 1 trauma center with the ICU located on the 9th floor. We had an actual fire that had been set in the oxygen closet where all the ventilator patients (12 of them) got their O2. All 12 of the patients were evacuated outside the building with ambu bags and their charts in 7 minutes and no one was damaged in the process. We recruited family members, ancillary staff and anyone within shouting range. We improvised. It was not the exact protocol but above all we did no harm and everyone lived.

What type of hospital did you work at that didn't have a fire evacuation plan?
We have plans for EVERYTHING at our hospitals. We have a list of at least 20 different “codes”, each has a “policy and procedure” associated with it that must be followed to the letter. If you don't follow the “policy and procedures” and something goes wrong, because you “improvised”, you can not only be held civilly liable for that but also criminally. If you caused harm with “improvising” you can actually be charged with criminal negligence, and if someone dies, technically with manslaughter.
You should also know that you are not supposed to call on “anyone in shouting range”.

What if someone walked off with one of those patients?
What if they dropped them while transporting them?
What if they opened up a fire door and allowed the fire the spread?
What if they broke an O2 line?
What if you expected them to get a patient, but instead they panicked and fled leaving the patient in a room without you realizing it?

Man, I don't know what country or state you're in, but that doesn't even make sense.
Here that wouldn't fly for two seconds.

whitewave
In a tort lawsuit she only has to prove that the school had an obligation to provide for her safety; that she did suffer harm; that said harm was due to the school's action or lack of action. I think she's got a case. I'm a nurse, not a lawyer so we'll see how this plays out.

Nope...
Same as with the hospital, if they followed state approved “polices and procedures” they are legally perfectly fine. The fire marshal sets those procedures to my knowledge, and if they don't follow them and some gets hurt THEN they are liable.

pheonix358
Where is your humanity. A child was suffering. That should not have happened.

So you would rather have the headlines read: “Child severely burned after missed in student count while school staff finds car for another student who was cold”. You should again know better then this with your background. Sometimes you have to put the greater need first, and this case that need was ensuring everyone was clear of a possible fire or gas from the science lab.

defcon5

pheonix358
Where is your humanity. A child was suffering. That should not have happened.

So you would rather have the headlines read: “Child severely burned after missed in student count while school staff finds car for another student who was cold”. You should again know better then this with your background. Sometimes you have to put the greater need first, and this case that need was ensuring everyone was clear of a possible fire or gas from the science lab.

10 Minutes out in the cold, approximately.

If it had been me as the teacher!

One minute to do a head count. During that time I would have noticed a child in need. Assuming no missing children, I would work to keep the suffering child warm. I would have done this immediately.

The reason stated in the article for inaction was simply to comply with a plan and some rules.

If all my ducklings are safe, then I can throw those rules away. If that had been a real fire with fire engines and flames and building on fire, what then? Do you still follow the stupid rules and say "Well, at least she didn't burn"

I have seen this type of thinking so often. The peanut that makes the rules, follows other peanuts who follow other rules.

Every safety rule has exceptions. A person entrusted with the safety of others needs to understand the overriding principals to ensure the immediate AND ongoing safety of the children!

To stick to some rule or code once the need for that rule has passed is silly.

Immediate steps should have been taken to ensure the CONTINUED safety of the children.

P

hounddoghowlie
there were several people at our firehouse including the chief( which is still there after thirty years) that didn't believe each and every situation require strict adherence to procedure. things can be quite fluid in some, and change in a instant. some can be quite clam and very little action. our job was was not only to access the situation and respond accordingly, but adapt if necessary.

Let me show you the key part in this statement of your right here:

and we trained in this way

YOU TRAINED IN THAT WAY...
In a fire house you spend a lot of time training for that, years of your life, and you face real situations on a daily basis, which means you know how to deal in those instances. You or I don't give them a second thought, BUT you cannot expect the same from teachers. They DON'T get paid to train on this stuff 20 hours a week, they have other work to do. They also are not necessarily exposed to these situations on a regular basis and cannot be expected to react like a trained professional would. As a trained professional, you should know better then anyone, that they are taught to follow a plan that is put together by the state, practice that plan a couple times a year, and follow that plan to the letter. You want civilians to do that, because they can make things worse by improvising.

As a firefighter how many times did you see where someone decided that they didn't see smoke so it was okay to run back in for a pet or something, only to find out that the fire was air deprived until they open the door to give it a new air supply? That's the kind of crap that improvising can get you if you don't know what you're doing.

hounddoghowlie
again i ask why take the chance, especially a non firefighter. that could and should taken responsibility for the child and accounted for her.

Because those teachers had another priority to take care of first, that being to ensure that all their students were out of the building an accounted for. After that's done and the numbers reported to whoever is in charge, then you can start dealing with taking care of the person who is cold. Its not unreasonable that getting everyone out there, counted, and reported could have taken up the majority of the 10 minutes she had to wait. Again, ten minutes is not very long when you take what they have to do in that time into account.

Water temperature: 32 degrees or below Time until exhaustion or unconsciousness: Less than 15 minutes Expected time of survival in the water: Less than 15 to 45 minutes

Yeah, that's the same numbers I quoted you, and those are full immersion in freezing water. That's worst case scenario as water is a great conductor of heat, and causes you to lose it faster.

hounddoghowlie
that's a great time for a fire department to respond, but how do we know she was out there for only ten minutes. could have been longer who was timing this, you yourself know that time slows down or speeds up in these situations. remember news reports hack things up.

Because that's what was stated in the article, and her own testimony on video. I was not there, and I suspect that you weren't either, so all we can do is go on what has been told to us here.

hounddoghowlie
yes i do to put it simply, to increase the chances of survival and minimize disability or save life.

That's right, and that's for someone in seriously bad shape. Yet again here we're talking about 10 minutes.

hounddoghowlie
look i could go on and on answering your you knows, thing is nobody wanted to take responsibility, to act differently than the plan states, which is not always the best case in which things should be done, for a non responder.

Maybe they did, but they had to do the important part of the plan first, the part where they have to get everyone outside, assembled, and counted. You know, the part were they make sure no one is still trapped inside and dying.

reply to post by defcon5


Wow, that's a lot of questions that are completely off topic. I could answer them for you but it's 4:30 in the morning and I have to "get up" in a half hour.
I actually wrote some of that trauma center's policy and procedures but I'm not an automaton and am capable of thinking for myself. The tasks assigned to non-staff volunteers (who also had to be evacuated) were not anything that would cause harm either (throw that chart on the bed, grab your purse and follow me).
Since this story has become newsworthy, policies and procedures/protocols will be reviewed to assess for possible improvements. I'm glad the girl didn't go into V-fib from her exposure and that no one died. Still, I don't think it would've taken an awful lot of time for one other person to have thrown her another coat or even hollered for someone else to do so. We'll have to let the lawyers battle out the rest.

According to Wikipedia they have almost 1500 students there. Class size when I went to school was about 30, so lets say they have about 50 teachers.

pheonix358
If it had been me as the teacher!
One minute to do a head count.

Yeah, sure, did you ever go to a high school?
You're not going to even get them all out there in 1 minute let alone get them into the class group and count them. You'd be lucky to get that done in 5 minutes, then you have to wait for all the other counts and the total to be cleared that everyone was present. After that you can start trying to find some way of dealing with the other situation.

pheonix358
The reason stated in the article for inaction was simply to comply with a plan and some rules.

Yeah, she wanted to leave the area or have a teacher leave their class to go get her a car. Well if the teacher is not there because they are walking out to their car, or is walking her to another building, who is gathering, counting, watching, and ensuring the safety of the other 29 students in that class while this is going on?

pheonix358
If all my ducklings are safe, then I can throw those rules away. If that had been a real fire with fire engines and flames and building on fire, what then? Do you still follow the stupid rules and say "Well, at least she didn't burn"

And what would have happened if this had gone on 15 minutes earlier when all the students in that class had been in the pool? You going to send off 30 teachers to go get 30 cars? What if most of your teachers didn't grab their car keys when they left the building, what then?

pheonix358
Every safety rule has exceptions.

Not necessarily. As in the example I wrote above, you have “policies and procedures” manuals that must be followed to the letter, and if not then you become criminally and civilly liable for not following them if any harm results. I just looked around and schools similarly have to follow a set “policy and procedure manual”.

Unfortunately I cannot seem to open up PDF files ATM, its crashing my browser, and most of the documents I am coming across are PDF's. Maybe you can find who it is that sets these plans, or okays them. Whoever that is would ultimately be the person you guys want to fault here, not the school.

pheonix358
A person entrusted with the safety of others needs to understand the overriding principals to ensure the immediate AND ongoing safety of the children!

I have worked in multiple industries where they have set “policies and procedures” or “operational guidelines”, that are set by industry wide “best practices” and “lessons learned” from tens of thousands of instances covering hundreds of thousands of variables. Now if you think that you know better then all that accumulated experience, then go ahead and improvise, but chances are the reason why those things are not in the guidelines is that they already were “lessons learned” from a previous situation where that same action ended in unforeseen bad results. The thing is that any human has limited experience with these situations, but when you compile all the knowledge across hundreds of thousands of different situations, you get a procedure that is the safest and works the best in the majority of instances.

whitewave
I actually wrote some of that trauma center's policy and procedures but I'm not an automaton and am capable of thinking for myself.

Your policies and procedures are nothing more then a “checklist” the same as a pilot uses to ensure they don't skip a step in the heat of the moment. In an emergency do you want a pilot who is just winging it, or one that follows the emergency procedures to the letter? I'll give you a hint, Capt Skully followed his to the letter. Those procedures should be based on industry wide “lessons learned”, “best practices”, and in the case of a pilot thousands of hours of simulation time. If you think that you can “wing it” better than all that accumulated knowledge, then I wish you the best of luck. Eventually your luck will run out though, and the first thing that you will be asked when they bring you in to investigate what happens is, “did you follow the policies and procedures for that scenario?”

whitewave
Since this story has become newsworthy, policies and procedures/protocols will be reviewed to assess for possible improvements.

That is entirely possible.

whitewave
We'll have to let the lawyers battle out the rest.

If they followed their P&P then there is nothing for them to battle. You put them on a court stand and all they have to say is that, “we followed the state approved P&P to the letter”. Someone would then have to go and attempt to sue the state over it. As it sounds like there few damages here, the reality is that is most likely never going to happen.

reply to post by defcon5

I have worked in multiple industries where they have set “policies and procedures” or “operational guidelines”, that are set by industry wide “best practices” and “lessons learned” from tens of thousands of instances covering hundreds of thousands of variables.

I have also worked in multiple industries where they have set “policies and procedures” or “operational guidelines” In my experience these have been formulated by some clown in Management Services who is working from a manual written by some peanut who would not know if his butt was on fire. That is my honest assessment.

It would be really nice if it ran the way you suggest, but in a school it was probably just some teacher that volunteered to work it out or some expert from head office who attended a two day seminar. That is what my experience has demonstrated.

As in the example I wrote above, you have “policies and procedures” manuals that must be followed to the letter, and if not then you become criminally and civilly liable for not following them if any harm results.

No insult intended! You seem very concerned over several posts that the school (in this case) must not put themselves in position where they may be sued. Perhaps that difference is due to you living in the US.

I would like to make the point that the school followed all of these principals you expounded, to the letter, and because they did it too the letter, a child was injured. That is unacceptable in my book. I am not satisfied to simply say, "Your Honor, I followed the book to the letter." Not when a child was injured. I do not care if the injury was mild or otherwise, it was completely avoidable.

Ultimately, she was injured because the school was protecting their backside.

Not a good reason in my book.

Any human with half a brain would instantly know that a wet child, in a swimsuit, in those conditions, was in an unsafe and hostile environment. The school gets a fail from me. No procedure manual ever devised can cope with all possibilities, that is where the human brain and common sense should be engaged.

P

It's really sad when members of our society can believe it is OK for a child to get frostbite during a fire drill when it could have been prevented by a sliver of common sense.

VoidHawk
I'm not in anyway sticking up for the school, but several of us in this thread have mentioned common sense, so I have to wonder why the girl didn't use her common sense. Why didn't she run for the nearest warm place?

With a fire-drill, you have official assembly points. When the alarm goes off, everyone is to evacuate the buildings, go to their nearest assembly point, wait and get their name checked off the roll-call. That way, management can tell if everyone is present. No exceptions, you stand out there, you wait, you get roll called, you go back in once the alarm has been checked and reset by the fire marshal.

But since most buildings have sprinkler systems, and on occasions there will be cold weather, it seems that no-one has thought of the possibility that people could end up standing outside in the cold with wet clothing. Normally, there would be at least one person carrying a bag of dry clothing.

The school district ought to face a heavy fine and lawsuit for this. However, we all know we live in the age of non-accountablity, especially in regards to institutions, corporations and banks.

JHumm
You shouldn't have to worry about your child gettin frost bite at school ,no matter how minor .

This is the bottom line, period, end of all ignorant discussion about NOAA stats and living where ever and "being used to it"!

It is just infuriating as a parent, no, as a HUMAN BEING to even be reading some of these comments... and by esteemed members of the forum no less smh.

edit on 5-3-2014 by IrishCream because: (no reason given)

edit on 5-3-2014 by IrishCream because: (no reason given)

edit on 5-3-2014 by IrishCream because: (no reason given)

You should know that 10 minutes is not an unreasonable response time


10 minutes is unreasonable when there are teachers standing right there and aren't doing enough

That's what we get for underfunding education. The idiots who can't find better employment gravitate there... the only environment they know.

That's not to say there aren't dedicated, out of box thinkers who teach... there certainly are... but the above analysis is correct as well.

We are doomed as a society unless all schools are treated as important investments... and they are not, now.

ETA and the story is also a result of an overly-litigious society where dumb bureaucrats are too scared to act rationally against the all important (and safeguarding) rules. Bah...

Baddogma
That's what we get for underfunding education. The idiots who can't find better employment gravitate there... the only environment they know.

That's not to say there aren't dedicated, out of box thinkers who teach... there certainly are... but the above analysis is correct as well.

We are doomed as a society unless all schools are treated as important investments... and they are not, now.

ETA and the story is also a result of an overly-litigious society where dumb bureaucrats are too scared to act rationally against the all important (and safeguarding) rules. Bah...

edit on 3/5/2014 by Baddogma because: (no reason given)

Well, throwing more money at the situation isn't the answer. The answer is smaller class sizes for one. It gives a teacher more opportunity to work one on one with the students. And secondly, it would be most beneficial if schools would start teaching students the TRUTH, which arguably has NEVER been done, particularly in regards to history and such.

I hate to say it because we have educators here among the community, so I hasten to say up front, this is by NO means referring to all educators.

However, I look around today at teachers and those in the pipeline to become teachers and I see something all too often. These are the mousey, often socially challenged people in school themselves. So they go out to run a classroom or school themselves with all the issues and mental hangups that came from that.

Such as....100% lack of ANY initiative in the face of contrary rules or requirements...even when health and safety are at obvious risk. SO DEEPLY ingrained seems the need to follow the rules and COMPLY at any cost, even a child like this can be left to suffer REAL and serious physical injury during a situation any fool should have seen was totally over the top.

Still.. They followed the rules, and doom on the wet, half naked girl in -5. There was a fantasy fire burning away in someone's damn mind....so if a girl freezes half to death? Well... Tough, I guess this says. That fantasy fire is more important because rules come before outcome. Compliance comes before humanity ....and we're in deep trouble these days as a society in general.

*EVERY last adult who was directly involved or knew of this situation while it was ongoing should be *FIRED*. Not suspended. Not punished. Not 'corrected'. They need shown the door, thrown THROUGH it and told NEVER to cross the property lines of a facility dedicated to children again.