When I saved a Finger

Daily writing prompt

When was the first time you really felt like a grown up (if ever)?

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This is the true story from my early career years. As far as I remember, I was 19 years old and just started my first job. I was working as a shift supervisor and controlling almost 50 people working on the manufacturing shop floor.

It used to be a laborious job to handle so many people and get the desired output from each one of them. Shift in charge used to be the boss for that shift and look after all the daily tasks like arranging material, resolving machine breakdown issues and also the inter-personal issues between the operators.

That day, I was attending duty in second shift. I was busy in guiding people and performing quality checks on the output. Suddenly an operator came running to me and said, Sir Shivaji is severely injured and his hand is bleeding. I was shocked and ran to the machine where accident took place. I saw one of my operators, Shivaji was injured and lot of blood was coming out from the wound.

I was barely 19 years old and even Shivaji also was of the same age, but I was in charge of the shift & expected to give them the solution. I was working in a small-scale industry and there was no medical centre available.

At that moment I acted so fast, first I tied my handkerchief to Shivaji’s hand to stop the blood loss. Then I drove him to the nearest hospital on my two-wheeler. Without even thinking for a moment I acted. We reached the hospital and Shivaji was treated for his wounds immediately. He has 6 – 8 stiches but he was alright. I was happy for my decision, actually I should have contacted seniors for their permission but looking at the scenario, I acted on my own.

Then the doctor said nothing to worry but he should take rest for next three days. And at the time of leaving the hospital, the doctor said to Shivaji – Please thank your supervisor who saved your finger. If you had delayed coming to me by even 5 minutes, I could not have saved his finger. It would have been imputed.

Shivaji was standing in front of me with folded hands. At that moment I felt, I am grown up now and can handle the complete responsibility of a shopfloor.

This was a life lesson for me, which remained with me as an experience.

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