Iron Security College Scholarship Entry

A last minute decision can greatly impact a person or even several people. There have been many instances in my life where I have had to make immediate decisions in a moment’s notice. For almost 5 years, I worked for an after school day care and a summer day camp while I was getting my first bachelor’s degree (I am on my second bachelor’s degree now) in South Florida. We had a full facility that even included a full gym with a basketball court. We had a special time put aside every Tuesday and Thursday for roller skating and we even had a whole skate room full of roller skates and skating games.

One day, during the after school program, I was one of the skating monitors in the gym when a situation occurred that required some swift decision making and some delegating. It was probably one of the most terrifying moments of working there and maybe even one of the most frightening in general of my life. It’s hard to know how to react in a moment’s notice. The kids were skating in the gym and we had the “High School Musical Soundtrack” playing. There were probably about 20 kids skating at the time and the age range was Kindergarten through 5^th grades. We had just finished our “limbo” game and it was free skate time. The kids were skating around in circles around the gym and everything seemed to be going smoothly…or so we thought.

All of a sudden, in the blink of an eye, something happened! I saw one our second grade boys trip over another child and fly into the bleachers. I hurried over as fast as I could, while the other skating monitor watched the rest of the kids. When I got over there, I realized the situation was pretty bad. All I could see was blood all over the back of his head. I should stop here and say that blood makes me faint and queasy and has even made me pass out before. Of course, seeing all of that blood, my first thought was to walk away. However, I couldn’t. I had a responsibility to the child as his caregiver. I braved the blood and went over to him.

Surprisingly, he wasn’t crying. Yet. I think he was more stunning than anything else. That is, until he saw the blood coming from the back of his head. Once he saw the blood, he started screaming and crying. I had to do some quick thinking. The first words out of my mouth were, “its okay! Everybody has this happen to them!” He replied, “Really?” as he looked me with sad eyes. I said, “Yes, of course.” He stopped crying and by that time, someone had brought me the first aid kid and I had time to put my gloves on for protection. As I was cleaning him up, I realized it was pretty serious. He had split the side of his head open. We called his parents to come pick him up and while we were waiting, he sat next to me while I read him picture books to keep him calm. His parents came and picked him up and took him to the hospital. It was such a scary situation and required very quick thinking. 

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