Sporting injury highlights lack of emergency services
On a beautiful sunny afternoon last Saturday, with temperatures well into the high teens, Carrick United under 15 boys welcomed a strong Ferrybank side to Tom Drohan Park. The game started well for the home side with Darragh Ruski netting from well outside the box before Fionn Power grabbed two and just before half-time Ferrybank pulled one back.
Minutes into the second half the travelling side had the ball in the Carrick net to put the minimum between the sides but then disaster struck. One of the Ferrybank attackers seemed to stand on the ball and lost his footing, resulting in a fairly serious injury which led the game being stopped.
Attempts to assist the young man were met with painful protests and an ambulance was called.
As well as local trained first aiders, an off-duty fireman and a nurse were at hand to try stabilising the player. The initial call to the emergency services was made at 3:55 pm.
At 5.05 the referee made the decision to call the game off as both sides had been trying to stay match focussed and “warmed up” for just over an hour.
At 5:15 an ambulance came to the young man’s aid. Between the first call and the paramedics showing up, the young lad lay, in tremendous pain, covered by a jacket first and then by an aluminium heat sheet on the ground. It was only pure chance that the weather was in the young man’s favour, and he wasn’t lying on a cold wet ground with rain falling on him.
On a national scale our health service is more like a third world country and not one belonging to one of the so-called wealthiest nations on the earth, on a local level, what many have been saying for years is made abundantly evident by it, that is, the town of Carrick, in limbo between Waterford, Kilkenny and Tipperary electoral areas has been long forgotten about in many aspects, but probably none more so than health.
To leave a child, lying in agony for an hour and twenty minutes is not acceptable in any civilised society but sadly that is the state we live in and it seems that while extra millions are found and pumped into the H.S.E every year the money is swallowed up by bureaucracy and administration while the public continues to be the ones to suffer.
Hopefully the young boy’s leg is not too seriously damaged, and he can be back on a sports field soon.
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