We tried to put it back in...

Many years ago on a Scout Jamboree I was just preparing to head off to breakfast with a few of my fellow medics before starting my shifts for the day. As we were walking away from the medical center I noticed a scout walking towards us with one of his arms being held up by his good arm and his leader supporting him. The look of pain on his face made me realise that he was not having a good time.

On seeing this I grabbed a chair and walked towards the scout and had him sit down where I met him. The leader advised us that the scout had a history of dislocated shoulders and that he had suffered another one on waking up.

Unfortunately for the scout we are not trained to reduce dislocations outside of the hospital so we gave him some pain relief and organised for him to be transferred to the hospital with one of his leaders. The leader and scout later came back to us to tell us that they got on fine in the hospital and that his shoulder was back in place. We wished them well and sent them off to get their dinner and to enjoy the rest of the camp.

The next morning I was again just about to head off to get breakfast when I saw the scout coming towards me with his leader, I recognised the same look on his face and knew straight away that he had dislocated his shoulder again. Once again we gave him some pain relief and sent him off to hospital with one of his leaders. This time a second leader had come with him and remained behind with us. I pulled them aside and asked them for more information about what had happened.

He started by telling me the exact same things as we had been told the day before before saying "Oh and we did try to put it back in". It turned out they had been told by the parents to try to put the dislocated shoulder back in if it happened but the parents never told them how to put it back in. The end result was they tried to get him to put it back in Mel Gibson style (see video below)! Needless to say this is not a recommended method and for his sins the poor scout ended up with a broken arm as well going from his shoulder to his elbow!