Think Before You Dump Those Coals!

(bumped up from the 4th - with all the focus on the holiday and Palin’s announcement, you might have missed this important story that might just change what people do on their cookouts this summer.)

PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT–THINK BEFORE YOU DUMP THOSE COALS!

Written by: Mary Ellen

The Fourth of July weekend often conjures up wonderful memories of past barbecues, fantastic firework displays, family gatherings and a feeling that all is right with the world. For me, that’s also true, except for a few fleeting moments as I remember the nightmare which my family went through, all due to the senseless act of one person…one very lazy, irresponsible person.

Anyway, today I want to use my very small blog as a venue for a public safety announcement and if this will help even one child, I’ll be happy. John Kass, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune agreed with me when I called him four years ago as my grandchild lay in a hospital bed at the University of Chicago Children’s Hospital. I’m putting up his entire column because he, in his usual fashion, was much more eloquent than I could ever be.

So, this is my story, as told by John Kass…..

Liana is a toddler with blue eyes and light brown hair. She sat in a hospital chair, playing with two helium balloons. She didn’t grab the strings with her hands. Instead, she grabbed at the strings with her toes.

Her mother explained, telling her story about a picnic at the lake the other evening.

“It was one of those perfect nights,” said Lisa ( XXXX) of Hyde Park, a teacher.

“There were people everywhere, and children, families, we were sitting on our blanket waiting for the fireworks to begin. People were grilling their food. It was wonderful.”

On July 3, she’d put the kids and blanket and some snacks into a wagon, then pulled them to Promontory Point, on the South Side of 55th Street, a peninsula awash in cool breezes that juts into Lake Michigan.

“It was getting dark, and we were excited because the fireworks downtown were going to begin, “she said. “My son, he’s 9, and Liana were playing. Another family had some jazz music on the radio. She was dancing to the jazz, and everyone was saying, ‘What a cute little girl.’”

As her mother told their story, the toddler kept pulling at the balloon strings with her toes.

“Balloon,” the child said. “Balloon.”

During their picnic, Lisa and her children had gone for a short stroll around the point. When they returned to their blanket, they sat down, but Liana being a fidgety toddler, just had to get up and toddle around. “She was right there, she was only 10 or 15 feet away, but it was dark then, and that’s when she fell. Her hands were out in front of her on the ground.”

If you know toddlers, you can picture it, hands down, head up, trying to right herself. She’d fallen into what looked like a pile of dust. Only, dust doesn’t give off a shower of sparks when a child falls in.

It was a pile of hot charcoals.

Some thoughtless barbarian had dumped out a portable grill on the ground rather than walk the 30 feet to the large red disposal containers.

“The sparks were flying and she was screaming,” Lisa said, her breath catching. “She couldn’t move because if she did, she’d get further into them, and I ran and grabbed her, and she was screaming.

“Her wrist’s,” Lisa said, sobbing now, in the quiet of the hospital room at the University of Chicago Children’s Hospital. “Her wrists melted. And her stomach was burned.

“Most people are kind. The great majority of people are so kind,” she said, still crying, not wanting to tell this part of the story. “But then, right there, no one helped, or called an ambulance, or brought water. One woman said, ‘Oh, put some ice on it and she’ll be fine.’ I was alone and put the kids into the wagon and started pulling them, running home.”

Lisa pulled her children running through the tunnel that leads to the point, down 55th Street and past the apartments there, past Orly’s Cafe and Morry’s Deli and the train viaduct at 55th Street and Lake Park with that mural that shows people helping other people.

It’s a 15 minute walk, but she made it in in less time. Then she got her car and drove to the University of Chicago Hospital emergency room, knowing about the doctors there, and the famous burn unit.

After treatment and surgery, Liana was sitting in her hospital room with me and her mom and my young friend Ben Berg, who had the smarts to bring the balloons.

She pulled the strings with her toes because her arms were heavily bandaged. Surgeons had also taken skin from her hip and grafted it onto her burned wrists. Doctors told Lisa that her daughter will heal just fine, lucky that her face and eyes wand fingertips weren’t burned.

The mom called me with a simple request, hoping a public reminder might save another child, save their hands, faces, eyes. She doesn’t want to outlaw casual barbecue in the park. She just hopes people will use their heads.

“Its so simple,” she said. “If you’re grilling in the park, don’t dump your live coals on the ground. Deposit them in receptacles marked for that purpose. And there should be more signs so people will know where to dump their coals.”

Such thoughtlessness happens everywhere, not just in the city of Chicago. But at the point after talking with Lisa, we found 32 piles of burnt coals dumped on the ground. Many were only a few feet from red coal bins. So what burned that child was selfishness. It was just too much trouble for the barbarian to walk a few paces to take care of a fire.

When Lisa called the Park District, they told her to contact their “risk assessment” department.

“I know what that means. It means lawyers,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking about a lawsuit. I was hoping they’d listen and post more signs so it wouldn’t happen again to another baby.”

Liana played with her balloons.

“Balloon,” she said.

As I was typing this story, I still feel the same hurt, anger, and panic that I did when my daughter called us from the emergency room, sobbing as she told us what happened. We made it to the hospital in record time, trying to concentrate on the road as fear welled up in my heart. I tried to hold back the tears as we entered the hospital room and put on a brave front for our little grandchild. She didn’t have much to say, she just held up her arms and in her toddler voice said, “I got burned”, (which sounded like ‘I got booned’). The nurses said that they had already received two other children who stepped in hot coals while in the parks that day. They explained that this is a regular thing every holiday, but in my granddaughter’s case, it was the most severe case to date. And yet, there are still no public service announcements on TV or on the radio and there are no extra signs pointing to where the coals can be dumped safely.

Liana is now 6 years old but still remembers the burns and the hospital stay. Along with the scars on her wrists, stomach and arms–although faded, will always remain with my granddaughter…all because of the thoughtlessness of one person who may have not realized that his laziness has caused a lifetime of memories that no child should endure every July 4th.