The Incident

I haven't had a scare like this since Daddy took Bennett to Ace Hardware a year ago.

After I picked Bennett up from school Thursday we went to the mall.  I had a couple of things to return, so I thought it'd be a good little activity for me and my boys to do together.  They enjoy going to the store.  And I had a coupon for a free milkshake from Chick-fil-A that I knew Bennett wouldn't mind sharing with me, and there's a Chick-fil-A at the food court at our mall.

So off we went.  I made my returns, we got our Banana Pudding milkshake from Chick-fil-A (which was better than I thought it would be), and we were ready to head home.  We were on the top floor of the mall and needed to get back down to the bottom, so we waited for the elevator outside of Macy's (I had Cannon in the stroller).  Well, Bennett loves elevators.  Waiting for it to come, he was looking at himself in the reflective doors.  He put his hand on it and I said, "Bennett, don't put your hands on it, it might open."  His usual response, "What will it dooooo?"  I'm pretty sure I said something like, "It might take your hand with it!"  Of course I wasn't really concerned about his hands getting hurt from being on the elevator door when it opened, I just didn't want him right there as someone might be trying to exit the elevator.

So anyway, it came, we got on, Bennett pushed the button for Level 1 and we went to the bottom floor.  As I felt the elevator stop, I turned my back to the door and prepared to wheel the stroller out of there.  All you mamas know how you have to be prepared to exit, 'cause those doors'll close on ya (or your baby) in a heartbeat if you don't get a move on.  Plus, the crowd waiting when the doors open never looks too happy when you're taking half a day getting yourself situated so you can exit.  Well when I turned around, the doors were opening and Bennett started screaming bloody murder.  I looked, and his hand was stuck in the door jamb - well, I guess it's not really the door jamb.  Imagine if you put your hand flat on an elevator door and as it opened, you just let your hand go with it until it led your hand right into the (very small) opening that the doors recede into.  That's what Bennett did.  The doors got stuck, because even though his fingers were little enough to fit in there, his knuckles weren't. The third set of knuckles- the ones on top of your hand.  The other two sets were already in there.   I immediately grabbed his arm and thought I would simply pull his hand out.  Not quite so easy.  The doors were still trying to open, pulling on his hand.  When I realized his hand wasn't going to come out easily, I started pressing the 'door close' button on the inside of the elevator.  Nothing happened.  By this time, Bennett is screaming his head off, Cannon is terrified and also screaming his head off, and I remember starting to lose it a little bit when the doors weren't moving and neither was his hand.  My mind was racing.  I thought for sure he was going to have a few broken fingers.  I wound up having to pull (with a good amount of force) his hand out of there. 

Whew.  All fingers intact.  The doors opened the rest of the way, and there was a couple with a stroller standing there that had witnessed the whole thing.  The girl immediately came over to us and asked what she could do to help.  The guy just kind of stood there with a "what the crap just happened" kind of look on his face.  She ran into Macy's and asked them if there was a mall medic on duty.  She also went to the nearest restaurant and got a bag of ice for Bennett's hand.

I don't really want to go into detail about the rest of it, because I don't feel like complaining about what a joke the security at Arbor Place Mall is.  They were very nice, but totally incompetent. 

Bennett's fingers got very hot and quite swollen for a little while, but I was able to bend each finger without causing him pain, and the swelling went down after a while.  In between his fingers you could see lots of tiny little red spots, like his blood vessels had been strained, but other than that, nothing.  He was fine.  Just a little traumatized.  By the time we were done filing the incident report, he was asking the security guards when their birthdays were.  That's what he's into right now.  He wants to know when your birthday is (what month) and if he can come to your party.

So there you have it.  Scary situation involving Bennett's fingers, Part 2.

(I have a feeling I'm going to get a phone call tomorrow that will go something like - I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU DIDN'T TELL ME ABOUT THIS!  IS HE OKAY???)   :)