My negligence nearly killed my son and my wife still has no idea
Throwaway because I honestly feel sick even writing this.
A few years ago my wife and I took our son to Hong Kong for a holiday. He was 7 at the time and has pretty bad asthma. He always carried a rescue inhaler with him. The inhalers have those little counters on top that show how many puffs are left.
Right before the trip, his current inhaler hit zero. My wife bought a new one and left it on the kitchen counter. She told me to pack it while I was sorting out our son’s bag.
I remember grabbing an inhaler off the counter and throwing it in the backpack without really paying attention.
We spent a few days in mainland Hong Kong and then took a ferry out to one of the islands for the day. The air quality was awful and it was humid as hell. While we were walking around my son started wheezing and then had a proper asthma attack.
I opened the backpack to get the inhaler and instantly realised what I’d done.
I had packed the old one.
I still remember seeing the little “0” on the top and feeling my stomach completely drop out. I genuinely thought in that moment that I might have killed my kid because I couldn’t do one simple thing properly.
My wife was freaking out, my son could barely breathe, and I just handed it to him without saying anything because what else was I supposed to do?
He took a couple puffs and somehow it actually worked. I don’t know if there was still a tiny bit left in it or if it just helped calm him down enough to slow his breathing, but he stabilised enough for us to get back on the ferry.
The entire trip back I felt like I was going to throw up. All I could think was that if things got worse out on the water it would be entirely my fault.
We took him to a hospital as soon as we got back to the mainland. He ended up being completely fine. I made sure we got another inhaler immediately while we were there.
My wife still has no idea. She thinks I packed the new one and that everything worked out the way it was supposed to.
I still think about it all the time. Especially whenever I see one of those inhaler counters near empty.
I've told literally no one. I felt like it was time to confess it to at least someone.