Sad game

It was an awful start to the day.  The lads were nearing the end of their match when our winger and their goalie had an awkward coming together. Our lad screamed out so we immediately stopped and rushed on to realise he had a serious injury.

Thank goodness the opposition had a GP parent on the sidelines. He did a star turn in helping us get things organised. The poor lad had clearly broken something around his ankle/leg.  

It was a real eye opener in terms of the emergency services and the strain the NHS is under. We were in a 5 minute queue even to get 999 answered, then a queue for the ambulance line and then when we got through they advised they were unable to send an ambulance as it wasn’t life threatening.  

The GP managed to cut away laces etc without hurting him too much and then we had to grab a stretcher from the footie club and manoeuvre him on to that and get him back to the warmth of the clubhouse. We were a few fields away from that so the lad did a great job in putting up with that uncomfortable transport. Then we kept him warm in the clubhouse as shock had crept in until we could get someone with an estate car that we could get him in to on the stretcher and then his parents had to get him to hospital that way!

X-rays showed several breaks so last night they were going to put him under to sort it all out.  Fingers crossed that he had a good night and is soon home.

Edit: turned out that there was too much swelling to operate overnight so he is still in hospital and they will look again at when they can operate.