Little girl’s thumb burned by clothes iron

Posted On January 25, 2008

We were in the house when I heard my little 3 year old girl crying her heart out in the adjacent house. I immediately rushed to her aid to find out what was bothering her. It seemed that the help and the aunties have not figured out the problem yet or aren’t doing anything about it. Upon asking my girl she pointed to a burned left thumb, the inner part had a big 1 inch long blister.

Auntie and my wife were busy shushing me to psych out the kid as if “it’s alright, it’s ok”. Crap. This is a time for doctor Daddy action. No psyching out will cure my kid if you don’t act. So I picked up my kid and brought her to our house so I can treat her myself.

I checked what the problem was. Burned left thumb. Looks like first degree. From a clothes iron. I immediately told my wife to get some ice cubes in a cup, then added water. Dunked her little thumb and hand in the ice cold water.

I went out the garden looking for our aloe vera plants. Darn, the big aloe veras were nowhere to be found. I only found some tiny ones. These will have to do for now. So I got one small leaf and opened it up for my girl.

Then I thought about the old aloe vera gel from the health store in the refrigerator. I put it into a cup and replaced the ice water with the stored cold aloe vera gel.

Then I thought, that’s not enough, I need real aloe vera, the big ones. I know two blocks away my office landlord’s house has aloe vera adorning her front side walk. I drove up with a maid and asked her to pluck one big leaf. No need to ring the doorbell. We were in a hurry.

We got home and filleted the bigger aloe vera leaf and mashed it with a spoon in a wooden bowl. After some relief with the cold old aloe vera, it was time for my daughter to transfer her thumb to really fresh aloe vera gel. There she found better relief.

Then I drove up downtown to get some medical tape. I got the idea of using the young aloe vera leaf strips as bandage, the medical tape to hold it in place so there is continuous contact with the healing aloe vera gel and her burned thumb.

Hopefully that will be enough for tonight. Will have to observe her thumb in the next few days.

I’ll have to get to the bottom of how they were able to get near a live hot iron tomorrow.