Fuzzy, stuffed friends get some care during TowerDIRECT Teddy Bear Clinic in Berks
May 30—Summer Shustack sat on a stretcher in the back of an ambulance, holding her friend on her lap.
She grasped Pandy tightly, making sure she didn't move as Anthony Martin wrapped gauze around the stuffed panda bear's paw. Pandy had taken a tumble, Summer explained, falling off her bike and hurting her arm.
The visit was quick, the treatment speedy. But as the 5-year-old hopped out of the TowerDIRECT ambulance she had a satisfied smile on her face.
"She's better," Summer said of Pandy, who she got on a trip to a zoo. "I'm happy because I love it so much."
Summer was one of dozens of preschool-age kids who got a chance to have their fuzzy friends checked out by some friendly medical professionals during a special event. TowerDIRECT, Tower Health's nonprofit ambulance service, recently hosted a Teddy Bear Clinic at the Child Development Center at Reading Hospital.
The event allowed the kids to bring a stuffed animal from home and have it receive a checkup inside a TowerDIRECT ambulance. The clinic was held to recognize National EMS Week and Emergency Medical Services for Children Day.
"What better way to celebrate?" said Chelsi Ober, TowerDIRECT's EMS outreach coordinator and a paramedic who was providing checkups.
Ober said that before the event the kids got a chance to learn a little bit about ambulances and EMTs. She provided the child center with some kids books on the topics their teachers read to them.
The hope, Ober said, is the experience makes the kids more comfortable with ambulances.
"If they were to encounter an ambulance in an emergency, hopefully this will eliminate some of the fear," she said.
For the most part, the kids who visited the ambulance seemed to already have their fears allayed. They smiled and laughed as they took their turn having their toys checked out.
And the TowerDIRECT crew had their work cut out for them. They took a dinosaur's blood pressure, and they used a stethoscope to listen to a monkey's belly.
They even examined a super hero.
"I've never taken care of a Spider-Man before," Ober told a giggling little boy.
Coraline Neiss showed up with concerns about Hooty, her stuffed owl.
"She hurt her tummy," the 4-year-old explained. "She bumped it on something."
Hooty was given some medicine, which fixed her right up.
Coraline's brother, 4-year-old Grant, was seeking medical attention for his triceratops named Blue.
"He scraped his horn on the ground, the front one," Grant said. "They put Band-Aids on him, and they put some ice on it."
