Monday, 17 August 1998

THE TURBANATOR

Summer holiday's are what every child looks forward to every year. A time where nothing matters and there's no responsibility or homework or timetable to be adhered to. Kid's can go wild and for the most part roam free from down til dusk. But for Andrew one fateful summer's day he quite literally lost his head, and almost a lot more.

Andrew's school has a tennis court design that many of you will be familiar with, lets call it the cage. The cage consists of a few concrete tennis courts all encased by a ten foot high metal frame that has cross-sectioned steel panels welded to it...why institutions feel these structures are necessary is beyond reason but they exist everywhere from public parks to schoolyards. Over the course of the year some of these panels had come out, no doubt helped by children swinging on them, balls hitting them and vandals downright kicking them out, thus leaving gaps in the frame where children could nip through. 

Racing down a hill after a night at play Andrew ducked, without breaking stride, and shot through one of these gaps...sadly for him he hadn't judged the distances properly andthe top of his head had been caught on the frame and as he shot through the gap it became separated from him entirely. Second's passed before the blood began to pour over Andrew's face and panic set in as he reached up and cried, "I can feel my brain!!!"

racing home Andrew was driven to hospital whereby he received plastic surgery to fill the gap in his cranium and pull his head back together. Afterwards he was dressed with a protective bandage that both protected his head from further damage and kept everything in place. Due to it's striking resemblance to a Turban Andrew was christened, the Turbanator for some time afterwards.

...As a result of Andrew's injury an inquest was held at the school to see what measures could be taken to ensure such a travesty couldn't occur again. After much deliberation it was decided that the entire tennis court frame would be reversed, changing every panel around so as to protect children from the outside...three months later, shortly after the refit Andrew, newly de-turbanned and returning to fitness was playing in goal inside the courts when he dived backwards to deflect an oncoming shot...only to split his head open again on the newly reversed inside of the structure.

A spokesperson from the school summed Andrew's new injury up in one word, "the Hindley boy?...typical!"