The world may be on pins and needles about a shortage of H1N1 flu vaccine, but the children at Bluffton Elementary School on Tuesday narrowed the concern to one thing: the needles.
About 600 of the school's 900 students rolled up red, blue, yellow or white uniform sleeves and took an H1N1 flu shot square in the shoulder.
The closest we came to a Norman Rockwell moment was when the 4-year-olds filed into the baby blue mobile classroom converted into a clinic. They had no idea what was about to hit them. As they scrambled into a seat by a cooing nurse, their little feet not touching the floor, the tears began to flow.
"I need a distracter," called a nurse. And a parent volunteer swept over to hold a child's hand, stroke his chin, and bury his head in her shoulder to keep his eyes off the one-inch needle. When the silently sobbing child had done his part to save the world from a pandemic, everyone in the room cheered.
The Bluffton children are in the first wave of local students to get the shots in what the state health department says is its largest undertaking for public vaccinations in memory.
In Beaufort County, 20,000 students are expected to get the shots over the next couple of months. By Thanksgiving, they plan to have reached all elementary-age students whose parents give permission for the shots, paid for by the federal government. Then it will be on to the middle and high schools -- and back to the elementary schools to give children age 9 and under a second shot.
About 50 staff members got shots at Bluffton Elementary, but they didn't need the perks the students got: Daffy Duck Band-Aids and stickers that said "Star Patient" or "Very Important Patient" with a drawing of a bear with one ear bandaged.
Fourth- and fifth-graders stepped out of the trailer, flexing muscles and proclaiming, "It didn't hurt at all." Then on the way back to their classroom, they'd clutch their arms and say in dramatic stage whispers to the class headed single-file in the opposite direction: "It hurts!"
A favorite reaction was, "It felt like this," as one boy pinched another.
Only a handful of students balked when they got to one of the nine nurses' stations staffed by professionals hired on a temporary basis. None was forced to take the shot, but every effort was made to see that it happened.
The students weren't exactly sure what "swine flu" is, but the general consensus was that it will kill you.
"It used to be in pigs and now it transferred over to humans," said one.
"It's like dirty stuff around you and you can die from it," said another.
Which led to a discussion about deaths they'd known. And laughter. And nervous needling. To see more of The Beaufort Gazette or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.beaufortgazette.com. Copyright (c) 2009, The Beaufort Gazette, S.C. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
Copyright (C) 2009, The Beaufort Gazette, S.C.