I had that happen yesterday. Dropping my daughter off for school. Slipped on some ice, wiped out and smacked my head on the asphalt. When I got back up I wanted to tell the people that saw me that I know they could see me and it would have been really nice if they would have come over to check on me. Afterwards I walked into the school, into the office and let them know what happened. Gave them my name, told them I hit my head, shoulder and wrist on the asphalt and told them that it’s because they don’t salt. They said “Oh I know, let me give you the number for the district, you should call them (to tell them to do a better job salting)” at which point I cut her off and said (very nicely) “I’m not going to call them, you call them, about a month ago I stopped in here and told you how icy it was and that’s the same thing you said then too, in fact we all sat around and talked about how bad the ice is here and how it never gets salted”. I know she’s just trying to get more parents to call and complain, but how about she calls them know and tells them what happened.
As I’m walking out of the office, the principal is walking in and she tells him what happened. I asked him why he never salts and he said “sure we do” “No, no you don’t, my daughter has been here for four years, I think I’ve seen salt on the ground (literally) 3 or 4 times, in fact, you have all the kids come in the front door and have indoor recess if it’s too icy because there’s a small slope to get around to the back” His response to that was “we do salt, do you want to see” I thought about taking him up on it because I knew there wasn’t any salt out there, but I didn’t want him to find a little bit and say “SEE!” also, if I ended up being ‘injured’ I didn’t want there to be any proof that I saw salt on the ground so I just said “No, I really don’t want to walk back out there to look at salt, if you do salt it’s clearly not being done well enough” and I know other parents/teachers/admin staff can back me up on that. Besides, I felt like crap, my arm hurt and my head was pounding.
I had a shitty headache for the rest of the day, woke up with nothing more then a very sore shoulder. What bugged me more then anything is that I didn’t get a call later in the day. It would have been nice for them to make sure I was okay and not, say, sitting at home drifting in and out of consciousness or on the phone with a lawyer. Even a call from their insurance agent would have been nice. Something to show that they actually heard me.
Tomorrow will be the first time I pick up my daughter again, we’ll see if the principal comes up to me…or if they’ve since salted.
Also, regarding not falling asleep. You can fall asleep with a concussion. Consider that an old wives tale. Some doctors will recommend making sure you can (fully) wake the person up every few hours, but most will say that rest is far better the forcing the person to stay away. Yes, being tired is a sign of a concussion, but you don’t have to fight it, you’re allowed to sleep, you won’t die.
