Jul 18 2015

Freaky is the new normal

Spiv & Chimps

 

I feel the need to comment on a disturbing article that I read on yesterday’s Chimp on-line website about a 15 year old English Schoolboy who got terribly sunburnt whilst on a school trip to Spain.

The article is in fact wrong on so many levels that it is a bit hard to know where to start.

So whilst I have a think about the best way to proceed, have a gander at my shortened account of the story:

Four teenagers needed hospital treatment for severe sunburn after they ignored teachers’ warnings to wear suncream during a school trip to Spain.

The pupils from Greater Manchester spent the day at a water park near Barcelona, and were told that they should wear factor 50 cream or stronger.

However, a handful of children failed to follow the teachers’ advice – and ended up with appalling blisters which required a visit to hospital.

The teachers, from Buile Hill Visual Arts College in Salford, were not allowed to enforce the guidance by applying suncream to pupils themselves because of school rules.

One boy, 15-year-old Connor Pritchard, has undergone specialist treatment at the burns unit in the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital since returning from the holiday earlier this month.

His mother Estelle said: ‘When he stepped off the coach I could see the bulge of the blisters on his arm. He tried to lift his shirt up and I broke down when I saw the burns.

‘No teacher hung around to speak to me. I just took one look and said, “Right, let’s get you to hospital.”

‘He had burns to his back, arms, and shoulders. There were four children in total from the school at the children’s hospital. It was awful to hear them screaming.

‘I had to watch as they scraped the damaged skin from Connor. It was terrible to see, he was in so much pain.’

‘I think it was total neglect on the part of the teachers. He had to travel for 26 hours on coach and ferry back from Barcelona in that state.

‘He will remain a patient at the hospital for the next six weeks before they discharge him.’

Temperatures in Barcelona regularly reach highs of 30C in July, and the risk of burns or heatstroke is extremely high.

Okay, now some of you will already know that as a child I lived in Jamaica, but for those who don’t I lived with my family on the outskirts of Kingston between the age of 8 – 13. Now obviously Jamaica is very hot and on one occasion I got very badly sunburnt after going on a Sunday outing with a school friend and his family, to a place called Lime Cay.

And although that was a long time ago, I remember that I felt very physically sick after I had been dropped off home and I was off school for the whole week because of the pain which as I recall was mostly from being unable to unbend my legs without them causing me excruciating agony… I did not at any point get seen by a doctor or go to hospital.

Course, it could be said that despite being blonde haired & blue eyed, I had been living in Jamaica for at least a couple of years at the time whereas Connor Pritchard would not have been as used to the sun as maybe I was.

On the other hand, I would have been about 5 years younger and less well equipped to handle the pain. And bear in mind that I had been badly burnt enough to still recall the event with clarity some 25 years later.

Moreover, on that day in Jamaica it would have been significantly hotter than 30C, yet my sunburn looked fuck all like Connors does in the photos.

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So lets start with the mother who is presumably the person who contacted Dacre’s Dunces with the story in the first place.

She says that:

‘When he stepped off the coach I could see the bulge of the blisters on his arm. He tried to lift his shirt up and I broke down when I saw the burns.

‘No teacher hung around to speak to me. I just took one look and said, “Right, let’s get you to hospital.”

Now first off I would dispute that given the severity of the burns that he would have been able to even wear a shirt, let alone travel on a 26 hour coach journey wearing one – although 17 hours to 21 hours would have been a more accurate time line.

Moreover, no teachers would have buggered off without making sure that all of the pupils had been met, giving Mrs Pritchard ample time to confront them, although I would have thought that the teachers would have approched her as a matter of priority.

And whilst I agree that in this day and age teachers should not be allowed to rub sunscreen into children in private, I cannot see any harm in them doing so in public if they feel that the child in their care is getting sunburnt.

After all, it is nigh on impossible to rub sun block onto your back yourself.

Nevertheless, even if the teachers were forbidden from doing so, there was nothing to stop them from banishing the child/children to an area of shade until such a time that the child/children agreed to apply sunscreen.

And if the teachers cannot do that, then it is pointless them being on a school trip and as such school trips should indeed then be prohibited.

As for spending 6 weeks in hospital for sunburn and the four teenagers in question screaming in agony having travelled for 26 hours presumably not doing so, I would suggest that this is just pie in the sky.

I did however note that the Chimp has a ‘sister’ article on their website to this one in line with what I wrote in my article Making Bacon earlier this week. The article in question is about a woman with a melanoma on her thumb or put another way, an article about how you are in danger of catching skin cancer anywhere on your body if you spend too long in the sun.

You can read that bollox article by clicking HERE

Course, neither article mentions the cancer causing chemicals in sun lotion products.

Nevertheless, the other issues that I have with this article is the lack of actual questioning of the facts, the way that blame is being shifted from parent, to teacher, to school, to government departments and back again and the fact that in the grand scheme of things, a teenager getting badly sunburnt is hardly fucking news.

And fuck me let’s face it, a 15 year old should have the sense to know that he/she is being fried beyond all common sense.

However, none of the above is the reason for me writing this. You see, what disturbs me more than anything is the way that no one appears concerned about a 15 year old boy, who despite being a little overweight, has tits bigger than a considerable number of women have.

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Teenagers overdoing the time they spend in the sun is normal, indeed 30 degrees Celsius or  86 degrees Fahrenheit is not uncommon in this country… On the flip side, a Fifteen year old boy with no apparent reservations about getting his tits out cannot be normal.

Just what the fuck are these cunts in power subjecting us to. And whatever it is they want to be on held to account for doing so… And very fucking quickly.

You can read the article by clicking HERE

By • Written by me •