Adam Prudhomme
Beaver Staff
A Napanee mom is using her nightmare situation to encourage fellow parents to be vigilant and educate their kids on the dangers of discarded syringe needles.
Amanda VanOrder was with a group of moms and their kids in Rotary Park on Wednesday when her daughter fell and punctured her knee on a discarded needle.
“The kids had decided to explore, they were looking for rocks and sticks and stuff like that,” she said. “They were playing along the tree line. We were literally 15 feet from them. They were proud of (finding the needle), however they didn’t realize it was a bad thing. They said ‘look what we found’ and I jumped and ran over to my daughter and said we don’t touch needles, they’re full of diseases, she hadn’t event told us that she had been poked yet.”
“She’s a Type One diabetic, so to her needles aren’t scary, they save her life,” added VanOrder.
It wasn’t until after she had taken the needle from the kids that she realized her daughter had been poked.
“She started crying uncontrollably and I said ‘what’s wrong’ and she goes ‘you’re scaring me’ and I said ‘did you get poked?’ and she said ‘yes’ and showed me on her knee where she had come into contact with the needle,” said VanOrder.
She then rushed her daughter to Community Oriented Primary Care, where her daughter was given antibiotics to help prevent the risk of Hep A, Hep B, HIV and AIDS. She’ll continue to work with an infectious disease specialist while they await the result of blood tests, which could take up to a month.
While she goes the extremely tense and worrying waiting period, she’s encouraging parents to take steps to avoid a similar situation. That includes having a talk with their kids about the dangers of touching discarded syringes-a topic most parents likely wouldn’t think to have with their five or six year olds.
In this particular case the kids were all being supervised when the incident took place but it can take mere seconds for an accident to happen. The kids were also in a well-kept area of the park in the middle of the day.
After taking her daughter to the doctor she contacted the Napanee OPP and made a post on Facebook to help spread the word. She also encourages parents to bring gauze and rubbing alcohol with them when taking their kids outside to help prevent infections in situations such as this.
“The OPP have been phenomenal,” she said. “I’ve had several of them reach out to me immediately when they saw my post. They’ve blocked off the zipline area (the part of the park where the needle was found) and done a search of the area.”
No other debris was found during the search but the incident remains under investigation. The OPP has since issued a statement telling members of the public not to pick up used syringes. Anyone who finds one is encouraged to call Napanee Area Community Health Centre at 613-354-8937 or the Napanee OPP at 1-888-310-1122.
Anyone with information on this incident is also asked to contact the police.
The Napanee OPP also reminds anyone who uses syringes to discard them in the biobin outside the NACHC building or attend the NACHC safe exchange program.
Meanwhile VanOrder says she is appreciative of the positive support she has received from the community while her family struggles with this difficult situation.