Last year our 9 year old son was playing outside our house on a quiet estate with no through traffic for most of the Summer holidays, it was the last week of the holidays when he came in the back door complaining that he had hurt his knee and elbow and saying he had come off his bike, first reaction was have you hit your head? No came the answer, as he came into the house he clearly wasn’t walking properly slapping down one of his feet, he was very distressed and in a very short space of time was becoming very confused. He started vomiting which was streaked with blood, at this point we decided that we really needed to go to A&E. We arrived and were sent straight to the childrens day ward, which was fortunately at the end of the day and was quiet, by this time we were finding it very hard to keep our son awake. The Consultant on duty at the time was absolutely brilliant and arranged an MRI scan, it turned out that he had a bleed on the brain and was taken to theatre at our local hospital so he could be transferred to Kings College Hospital In London for emergency surgery to relieve the pressure on his brain and to clear a massive blood clot. We were sent by ambulance in a blues and two’s situation, it was the most awful time ever, he was met by the theatre staff at the ambulance entrance, then taken away for over three hours surgery. Came back to ITU at 2.30am ventilated, was woken slowly the next day. He was in Kings for 4 days and was then allowed home. Thankfully he has now fully recovered and has an impressive scar to show for it. My point is that he was only playing on his bike outside our house without a helmet on and it was his handlebars that hit a lamp post that when he fell off bike and as far as we can all work out the handle bars hit the side of his head.
