Gross yet heartwarming story of the day.

A little girl tied her jumprope around her wrist and put it out the car window to see it flap, not realizing it could snag on the axle and take her whole damn hand off.

The gross part is obvious, but it’s heartwarming ’cause of this:

That’s when people Rix calls “her angels” stepped in. Jim Bailey, 48, pulled over, assessed the situation, and put the first aid courses he had taken to good use.

“Just like a superhero I like to think of him as, he whipped off his belt and did a tourniquet on my daughter,” Rix related. That swift action may have saved Erica from bleeding to death.

And also ’cause of this:

Since the accident, total strangers have donated money to help defray her medical expenses. Others have volunteered to help keep a 24-hour watch on Erica to make sure she doesn’t damage her hand. The firemen who came to her rescue visited her at home and let her sit in the fire truck.

“I can’t thank them enough,” Rix said. “I’m so grateful for everything that everybody did.

Although . . . not to rain on the parade or anything, really, and I’m sure the Mom was SERIOUSLY traumatized (my god, who wouldn’t be?), but . . . I hope if I ever find myself in a crisis situation like that, my reaction is more survivalist than “Rix stood in the road screaming, “Where’s her hand? Where’s her hand?” and trying to wave down other drivers to help.”

Basic first aid was a long time ago, but I do remember pressure points and tourniquets and CPR for adults, children and infants.  I’ve mentioned several times to Mike that when/if we start planning for kids, one of the things on my To Do list will be more extensive training in first aid.  Since we all know that kids have a mysterious and magical ability to do insanely stupid or hurtful things, I think a good grounding in emergency health care would be a bang-up idea.

(Not a parent, but I helped raise two younger brothers.  Whether first aid was more relevant when Jin (not his name) split open his lip in the middle of hiking the Shenandoah mountains, or when the two of them managed to set off the fire extinguisher — spraying powder all over the room and DIRECTLY INTO THE COMPUTER HOLDING MY MOTHER’S CLIENTS’ TAX RETURNS — I will leave you to guess.  Feel free to leave your own stories in the comments!)

(h/t ShoothouseBarbie, by way of a similarly icky story but without the heartwarming part)