A three-year-old has been hospitalized twice after suffering through what his grandmother, Mandy Truman, described as a “freak accident.”
The family, who live in Oklahoma, were enjoying an afternoon outside when the toddler tried to push a tricycle forward — and instead wound up with his hand caught in the chain, Truman told KOCO-TV.
“He just barely moved forward, and that’s all it took for that chain to grab ahold of his little finger, and then another one and another one,” she recalled.
Once his hand was caught in the sprocket connected to the trike’s chain, he instinctively tried to pull it back “out of fear,” Truman explained, which ultimately caused the digit to be disfigured.
He lost the middle finger on his left hand, but his grandmother argued the damage would have been worse if the boy’s father hadn’t intervened.
He was able to move the chain “just the right way and [release] him,” she added.
Two additional fingers were injured in the accident, but doctors were able to reattach one and treat a fracture on another.
“My heart is breaking watching this little boy go through so much pain,” Truman wrote in a GoFundMe page she organized to help pay for her grandson’s recovery.
“In a lot of ways, I blame myself, but if I can help other families and other babies prevent this from happening, put me on blast,” Truman told the outlet.
The best thing to do for most parents is to keep an eye on young children, she said.
After all, there are plenty of dangers around the average house that toddlers simply aren’t able to recognize — though bicycle-related injuries are especially common.
Other common causes of injury for young children include hot curling irons, easily inhaled magnets and electric scooters, NBC news reported.
“Developmentally, kids under 10, they’re going to be curious, they’re going to be reaching for things,” researcher Dr. Brandon Rozanki, a pediatric resident at Honolulu’s Tripler Army Medical Center, told NBC News.
He added that for many kids, curiosity overrules instinct — which is often not yet fully formed anyway — which leads them to reach for things like heated hair tools and fan blades — bike chains too—that adults know can be dangerous.
