Ready Kids › First Job Ready › Badge 7 › Lesson 7.2
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The call, for an address that isn't yours
Ring 911 from somebody else's house, reading their address from the card, and manage bleeding, a burn or choking while you do what they tell you.
1Look
The card by the phone
The card by the phone
A handwritten card on a kitchen counter: 9 Elm Road, flat 2, a postcode, second left off the high street, then Mum, Dad and Gran with numbers.
This card is why the address was question one at handover. In an emergency you will not remember a stranger’s postcode. You will read it.
2The idea
The call
Speaker on, phone on the counter, so your hands are free.
1. Am I safe? Is the child?
2. Ring 911, or 999 if that is yours.
3. They ask what has happened. One line: a four-year-old is choking. A four-year-old is bleeding a lot. A four-year-old has burnt her arm.
4. They ask where. Read the card: address, flat, postcode, cross street.
5. Your name. You are the sitter. The parents’ number.
6. Then: do what they say. Exactly. They will tell you what to do with your hands while help comes, and they stay on the line.
7. Unlock the front door if they say to.
Afterwards: the parents. Then write down what happened and when. The person on the phone is trained to talk a stranger through this. That is the whole reason to ring first and act second, rather than the other way round.
3The idea
Three things while you are on the phone
Bleeding: press hard on it with a clean cloth or towel. Keep pressing. Do not lift it to look. Ten minutes by the clock. If it soaks through, more on top, not instead. A lot of blood, or it will not stop: that is 911. Burns: cool running water on it straight away, and keep it there, twenty minutes. Clothes or bracelets near it off, unless stuck. Cover loosely with cling film. No ice, no butter, no cream. Bigger than the child’s hand, or on the face or hands, or on a baby: 911. Choking: if they are coughing, let them cough and stay with them. If they cannot cough, cry or breathe: 911 on speaker, straight away, and do what they tell you. They will usually start you with firm back blows between the shoulder blades and talk you through the rest.
Beyond these, you do not invent a technique. You call, and you do what they tell you. Never: leave the child to go and fetch something. Hang up. Put fingers down a choking child’s throat. Give a drink to someone who is choking. Pop a blister.
4The idea
Mila and the mug
Mila is sitting for Arlo, three. He pulls a mug of tea off the table onto his arm. Screaming. Mila: cold tap on, arm under it, keep it there, I know. The card is on the counter. Phone on speaker. 911. A three-year-old has a hot tea burn on his arm, about the size of my hand, I’ve got it under the tap. 9 Elm Road, flat 2, then the postcode, second left off the high street.
They ask questions; she answers. They say keep it under the water, someone is coming, unlock the door. Then Mum. She writes: 7:40, tea, left forearm, under water from 7:40, 911 at 7:42. She read the address. She never had to know it.
5Your turn
The practice call
The practice call
A scripted 911 call. The questions come one at a time, the card is on the screen, and you tap or type the answers. Three versions: bleeding, a burn, choking. It scores you on the address and on doing what they said, and nothing else.
Run the choking one twice. The first time, everybody tries to skip the call.
6Decide
Arlo has burnt his arm on the tea. What is the very first thing?
Pick one to carry on.
7Look
Pressure
Pressure
Two hands pressing a folded tea towel onto a cut on a child's shin, the child sitting on the floor, a kitchen clock on the wall behind.
Press, keep pressing, do not peek. Ten minutes is longer than it sounds, and the drill will show you.
8Find them
Which of these are on the card, ready before you would ever need them?
Tap the ones that count.
Find all 4.
9Say it
The address, read out
Say it as if you are reading it, because you will be
“It's 9 Elm Road, flat 2, second left off the high street. I'm the sitter.”
Swap in any address from any card. What you are practising is reading it out under pressure, clearly, once.
10Do it
Before you leave this page
Two things. Press a folded tea towel onto your own leg, hard, for sixty seconds by the clock without lifting it. Then have a parent write a made-up address on a card, and ring them from another room reading it out as if to 911.
Tick it when you have done it.
Lesson done.
Address from the card. Speaker on. Do what they tell you. Pressure on bleeding, cool water on a burn, and for choking: call, then follow the instructions.
Take the Badge ChallengeBadge 7 · When It Goes Wrong
7.1Who do you call first?7.2The call, for an address that isn't yours★Badge Challenge