This trip I witnessed something TWO TIMES that I’ve never seen before at Walt Disney World. Though, I’m sure they happen hundreds of times a day what with there being THOUSANDS of people staying on Disney property, visiting parks and taking Disney Transportation. I know you’re dying to know…WHAT??
Unfortunately I saw one first hand with my own daughter as blood gushed from my then 20 month old’s head.
Let me explain….
On the first day we came in we decided to go over to Ft. Wilderness (our first time over to it) and eat at Trails End Buffet then later join Chip and Dale for the Campfire Sing-along. I’ll have to tell the truth and say that I wasn’t that impressed with Trails End. The food (what I got to taste of it) was good, but none of the waitresses (until the emergency) bothered to talk to us and its A LOT of money to not get an “experience” too. There are no characters there and the staff don’t really interact. So for my $5.00 more a plate I’d rather go over to Whispering Canyon and enjoy myself there, basically same food. 
My daughter managed to eat the few oz. of pizza and mac and cheese that didn’t get smeared on her face and she was bored pretty fast. She was squirming all over the place and so I decided to just take her into the Arcade (which is attached to the restaurant) to let her pretend to play some games and give my husband and family some peace to eat.
There are four “driving” games lined up in a row in the arcade and my daughter was enjoying playing with the steering wheel. I sat in game #4 and she was sitting in #3. There was another kid about 8 driving in the #1 game. Well, my toddler daughter decided she was going to move over to game #2 and since she’s not even 2 and can’t gauge the distance she didn’t quite make it. And I heard her head land with a thud. At first I thought it was just a typical toddler bump until she started screaming and lifted her head and blood was POURING from a gash in her forehead where she hit THIS little baby.
A big, nasty, pokin‘ out BOLT.
So I grabbed her and moved back into the dining area to try to get some napkins to compress on her head as quickly as possible. She is SCREAMING and, well, everybody can see the blood all over my hands and her face and I’m thinking…. “this is an eating establishment. Pretty sure they don’t want to see a lot of blood at the buffet” so I take her outside to try to compress in order to slow down the bleeding.
Suddenly the MASSES descend upon us. I look up and, I kid you not, there is:
~ my mother
~ 2 waitresses (neither of which are the cruddy waitress for our table)
~ 2 completely RANDOM kids of about 8 or 9 who are asking her name and staring at the blood pouring out of the gash.
~ 1 restaurant manager on a phone. I hear her saying into the phone “yes, be advised we have a 2 year old with a major head trauma here. Yes, she is bleeding. Yes, she is breathing for now.”
All this time I am not panicking as I’m in first aid safety zone trying to slow down the bleeding and keep these people out of my babies face who is squalling b/c there are random strangers calling her name LOUDLY over her cries and trying to put wash rags full of ice on her head?!
Within about 3 minutes the:
~ Security Officer comes out and begins taking detailed notes of what happened.
~ What appears to be the coordinator for all of Ft. Wilderness doing some head nodding and getting some reports from the restaurant manager.
The restaurant manager is still on the phone with the paramedics giving strange sounding updates about my child who, as far as I can tell, has mostly stopped bleeding.
Within about 10 minutes 2 paramedics walk up.
So as they check my daughter out I look around and realize I have, like, 12 people all hovering around my daughter to make sure she’s ok. Of course more nosey buffet-eaters leave out of our door (which normally they WOULDN’T) b/c they wanna find out whats going on.
The paramedics were AMAZING and decided that giving her stitches would just further traumatize my little one so they give her the only band-aid they can find. a HUGE blue crayon. 😉
Nothin’ says “I got an owie” quite like a massive band aid.
She was grumpy for a while after that.
We also saw a man fall and bust his head wide open while waiting for park opening at Hollywood Studios one morning. I was AMAZED to watch those Disney Park goers (not staff, just people on vacation) launch into their trauma training while waiting for the paramedics arrive. It was good to watch people care.
Make sure if you have an emergency that you look around and check the time and try your best to remember all the surrounding circumstances b/c you WILL be asked to repeat it multiple times to multiple people. 🙂
I’m glad your daughter is ok. I found this post interesting because my family and I used to stay at Ft. Wilderness alot and I can tell you that I gashed open my leg on that same bolt on those car games at least once a year. I am really surprised they haven’t fixed it yet!
A few Disney vacations ago I cut my leg on the corner of the bed frame in our room. I called the hotel manager, they told us where the hospital was & we drove there ourselves. I ended up with 14 stitches in my leg. (this was no little scratch!) I would not have done anything further had I received something for my troubles (free dinner? small gift?) but because they pretty much ignored that it happened-I pursued some reimbursement when I got home. They did refund my ticket price due to the fact we couldn’t use the water parks we had paid for. I have a permanent souveneir on my right leg from that trip!!
How terrifying!! I am glad everything turned out okay in your case (and I hope it turned out okay for the other guest, too)!
i had the opposite experience with medical personnel at Disney.
we were at HS, and i was sitting in the gift shop area at the exit of Tower of Terror with my 9 month old, waiting for husband to exit so we could do the baby swap. she was sitting on my lap most of the time, and just before he exited i put her back in the stroller and then he appeared. i turned for 2 seconds to greet him and she tumbled out, face down and landed on the base of a wrought-iron sign that was next to us. BLOOD EVERYWHERE. her whole face was cut and bruised and blood was streaming from her nose. during this time, not a single guest approached us to see if everything was OK, nor did anyone from the ride. perhaps we bolted out too quick to find the nearest first aid station, but we were standing there for a good 2-3 minutes getting our bearings.
upon arriving at first aid, the woman at the desk was SO VAGUE with her replies and kept giving ME the side eye, like i had hurt my child purposely. we also wanted to know what the chances were that she might have a concussion and she said “i dont know. you’d have to go to the ER. we aren’t a full-service medical facility. i can call an ambulance if you like.” i’m like “arent there nurses here or something? isnt this the medical station” and she would say “no, no one is here right now. would you like an ice pack?”
thankfully out daughter was OK in the end. the facial bruising was almost gone the next day, but the whole experience left a bad taste in my mouth regarding emergent medical care in the parks.
Wife and I just got to Disney World 12/09/2012 checked in at the Port Oleans Riverside I grabbed US a couple of buffet dinners and brought them back to the room because she was tieder and not feeling to good from two days on the road.The next morning she was feeling worse so we went on to the nearest hospital emergency room come to find out she had blood clots in her lungs she was admitted to the hospital we thanked God she didn, t die.l called to see to reshedule less spent for room and little food, was told can, t do that, I then asked for a refund so out of 3, 000.00 paid maybe 700.00 or possible 725.00 refund. I argued to no avail, and was a little irate, which I would like to apologize to the manger if she happens to read this, but we are still stuck in the hospital until she is well enuogh to make the trip back, but the most important thing is that she is still alive but we really wanted to have one of those magical weeks were dreams come true , really disappointed but things could be worse, l also thought I might hear something from Disney like how is your wife doing, but there are just a big making money machine and could care less , especially after there been paid, so DIsney is just what there say there are MAKE BELIEVE