our first emergency

a couple nights ago hubby had just finished mowing the lawn and zoom was right there beside him as he cleaned out the mower. curious as he is, he began touching everything, "helping". it all happened so fast, but he managed to grab the muffler, still hot from running. could it have even been a second? it doesn't really matter, because it was excruciating pain for the little guy.
conveniently, i was watering with the hose, but he would not let us do anything with his hand, not even look at it. poor guy.
his screams drew the attention of one of our med students upstairs and he came running down to see if things were okay. he was a great help, trying to get zoom's hand in water, put on aloe, even look at it, but none of us were deeming trustworthy.
zoom doesn't cry very long when he gets hurt. just the day before he fell off the patio chair on to the concrete, earning himself a raspberry on the forehead. he didn't even cry for 5 seconds.
last summer he fell off a platform at the playground, landing face down in the sand, 4 feet below. he cried for maybe 10 seconds, but it wasn't until we got home and i saw that he was limping that i realized he really did get hurt. the limp lasted a few days, but was more annoying to him than painful.
so when i glanced at the clock to see that it had been 15 minutes, i knew he was in real pain. i've been burned before - it HURTS! for a long time. and the poor guy had no idea that turning away cool water, aloe and even a moist cloth meant he would be bearing that pain alone.
it was 3 hours of nearly constant cries, mingled with arching back and writhing in pain, that he calmed down at the suggestion that we eat some dinner.
WHEW! and to think this will just be the first of many.....
thankfully, he slept solidly thru the night and the first thing he said when he woke up was, "bunnned" and showed his hand.
i think we'll survive.