Keeping children safe while they’re outdoors, as hard as one tries, may not be possible because one cannot be with them always.
Pedestrian and motor vehicle accidents are common cases that medical staff at the Emergency Centre of the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital frequently attend to. Take nine-year-old Kere from Lotus River in Cape Town for example, who was knocked by a motorbike while on his way to school with a group of friends.
He was rushed to the trauma ward at the Emergency Centre where he received treatment for injuries to his neck, right arm and left leg. After being discharged, unfortunately a wound became infected which required a subsequent theatre procedure.
After a month of treatment at the Hospital, Kere has been transferred to St Joseph’s Home for Chronically Ill children to enable further recovery.
Whether your children walk to school or take the bus, they should be taught how to be safe on the roads.
Here are a few basic road safety rules
- Obey road signs and traffic lights (robots)
- Stop, look left, right and left again and then cross at a pedestrian crossing
- Pay attention and listen to your surroundings
- Don’t run in the road
- Always use sidewalks / pavements
- Never cross roads at bends
We wish Kere well with his recovery and thank our kind donors who enable the medical staff at the Emergency Centre to provide life-saving care.
The overcrowded centre is currently being upgraded in order to deal with sub-optimal and inefficient logistics. Please support this project which will allow medical staff to care for more children. Click here to donate.
