Graduation Day By Daniel Rotenstein

At the end of my time in pre-school I had my graduation. This was the beginning of the summer of 2003. I had just turned five. The graduation was to be held at Parsley Bay, a polluted cove where the water is extremely shallow. In the adjacent park there was a huge playground in the centre. A huge playground that had two levels, the second level being only accessible by a ladder.  The playground was calling my name.

After the graduation ceremony I went to the playground with my friend, Fin, who was my best mate in school at the time. I was climbing down the ladder from the second level with Fin right behind me. I had started to climb down the ladder facing outwards, my hands holding onto the bars behind me. I didn’t know any better. Suddenly I fell. I was lying on the ground as still as a sleeping dog. My sister witnessed the whole thing and ran to tell my mum, leaving me lying in excruciating pain on the ground. I could feel something was wrong, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

Out of nowhere a bystander, who happened to be a mum, lifted me off the ground and took me around to where the other parents were chatting. When I got there she asked whose son I was, and that was when my mum, who was amongst the women in crowd, nervously said that I was hers. Mum made me sit down on a chair. Then the pain really kicked in. From there I was suspected of having a broken arm so the principal of the pre-school called the ambulance.

The ambulance soon came blaring and screeching down the hill to the park, but the access gate to the park was locked. People started darting and dashing toward the kiosk and neighbouring houses looking frantically for the key to the gate. In a jiffy the gate was opened by one of the mothers who had found the key. The ambulance cautiously drove in trying to avoid the children who were running around like troop of monkeys.

One of the paramedics thoroughly searched me for any other injuries, but then came to the conclusion that I had a seriously bad broken arm. I was quickly loaded into the ambulance and given the ‘green whistle’ – a pain relief inhaler that made me feel loopy and totally insane.

After being knocked out by an anaesthetic at the hospital I awoke to find I had a cast on my arm. Mum was in the room sitting by my side, reading a magazine. When she saw me awake she jumped to her feet and gave me millions of hugs and kisses. I had learned the hard way how to climb down a ladder and from that day on, I have always been cautious of any ladder, especially the one at Parsley Bay!