Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Emergency room care.

That may work when the ER isn’t busy but it is no guarantee you will get treated early. I have seen people transported by ambulance put back in the waiting area. Most hospitals today post covid are not fully staffed and very few want to work the ER.

After reading these I am reminded of the crowded spaces from those enjoying the climate controlled atmosphere, and the cops rousting undesirables or cops waiting with prisoners.
When arriving at an ER I'm usually in no shape to deal with much. Last round was very miserable and as they were stripping clothing I heard clunk followed by complete silence-Oh No my pistol.
Thought they were going to call Swat.
It all worked out and better educated for next round.

I was always told
Chest pain
Slurred speech/ sagging/shuffling
Severe burns

In order of priority.
Was I mis-informed?My only amberlamps ride, "The Warden" decided she couldn't pick me up, after I went down.
~1 1/4 miles from our front door to the ER - $800 mas o menos.
I don't care if insurance took care of it - I was PIZZED !!!
Told her I could have crawled there for that money!

Same here. Hope your wife gets treated soon.

Clunk. Lol.

That's only happened to me once. I was sitting in a chair on the porch at a seller's house in Miami trying to make a deal one time. The chair just collapsed underneath me and I went straight to the floor. Yep. Clunk. Don Hume IWB clip-on. Never used it again. Never bought another one. LOL.

My wife worked phlebotomy for twenty years. Some days she was staged down in the ER to cover patients. About the only time it was disconcerting for her was when LE brought someone in that was supposedly searched for firearms but the cops missed one.They couldn't get into the room fast enough... 🤭

Local hockey game, arena in same parking lot next to the hospital/er. Puck flew into the stands and hit a guy. He was fine but they told him he had to go to the hospital due to "protocol". Drove him across the parking lot in an ambulance. He got a bill for 750.

He made it about 6 more months and keeled over.

Should have said he had difficulty breathing. Just saying chest pain will trigger a certain line of questions by whoever is taking down your information during admissions. Wrong answer, take a seat. Difficulty breathing in an ambulance will get you O2 and if medic equipped an intravenous line and an EKG. Those things need monitoring so at least you get inside the ER. Walking wounded is a crapshoot. Anything even remotely orthopedic you are better off calling your own DR. Compound fractures will get you in as will serious trauma like a car accident. If it doesn’t look grossly disfigured you aren’t going to get much more than an X-ray.

Like real estate, location location location. Not all hospitals are good and not all emergency rooms can handle real emergency situations. Time of day and day of the week factor into who is on call as well.

One more thing, an ambulance is not a taxi, you don’t pay by the mile, you pay for services rendered. You can be within sight of the ER driveway and be 20 minutes out while they start a line and put you on a heart monitor. All extras you or your insurance will be charged for.
These opinions are my experience in Connecticut. YMMV.

Pretty sure he died from Covid.

I have found out the hard way but if you walk into an emergency room you will wait for a very long time and most likely they will give you some medicine and send you home. I had that experience with two ruptured disks in my back and instead of xrays and surgery they sent me home with pain pills and I had to find a surgeon on my own and have the issue repaired weeks later, all will suffering almost unbearable pain.

Now I have found out, after speaking to medical staff, if I had just had my wife call the life saving squad to come and pick me up I would have been taken into treatment immediately and would have had a specialist look at my case and X-rays would have been done and a solution implemented. If you show up at the ER in an ambulance there is another level of liability that the hospital faces and you are treated differently.

When my wife was having some internal bleeding and was very weak from the loss of blood I had her taken to the emergency room via ambulance and see was treated like royalty with immediate care and treatment. It was a night and day experience from what I had experienced.

Doctors are nearly impossible to see these days. It's much different now than years ago. It takes at least a week plus to get an appointment. They only work a four day week and it's appointment only unless you're in big trouble. They might possibly work you in then but I doubt it.
They do a lot of good work in the ER. I've only been twice myself but my wife has been more with her strokes. My first trip I thought I was in big trouble. Stomach hurt bad and I was passing blood. Turned out to be diverticulitis. Second time was a bilateral subdural hematoma and they got pretty excited. My wife did have a bad problem in Tyler ER when Palestine ER sent her there for a multiple fracture of her ankle a few years back. The Orthopedic surgeon that set her ankle (wrong) was set to go on a vacation fishing trip with his male nurse and bawled us out for being there for such a trivial thing. He put her in a cast up to her thigh against my wishes and sent us home. He was a total ass and I'd refuse his service if ever confronted by him again. We had to go back again and they set her ankle three more times before they got it straight. He must've still been fishing because I never saw him and that's a good thing for him and me. The Surgeon that eventually operated said it was quite a challenge. I found out a lot about breaks from that. The doctor that puts the cast on is the only one allowed to change it unless he's out then it's one of his lackeys with a personality that matches his. He is the only one that can operate in that system. We had to go out of the Mother ([bleep]) Francis System to get another surgeon.

It's a shame. But this is the reality.

We are very fortunate to have not required any e-room visits over the years with either of us or our kids. Plenty of injuries though and I have 5 different friends that are physicians that I call on. With the kids and sports, it was the orthopedic surgeon. I would just drop him a text and he would tell me to get into their office and he would have it set up for an appt asap.

Hope your wife got treated properly and is doing well.

Seems like the few times I’ve went the demograph was similar

20 mexis in the ER just watching TV, tearing up a bag of cheesey Combos stuffed pretzels and inhaling as much air conditioning as possible. Doubtful they were there even waiting on a compadre being treated. Just there.

Any bleck folks in there were drunk and yelling and spinnning around on the floor with the Rent a Cop standing there armed with only a walkie talkie

That's the way to go. Get your wake up call about mortality, get your affairs in order, tell everyone you love them and you are proud of them, check out.

Very sorry for your wife and sorry for both of you in terms of frustration. Seems like she would have been bumped way ahead of a lot of the other people. Probably could have gone up to Atlanta for Grady Hospital. Best in the state for trauma; but then get the hell out as soon as you can be safe to travel. Hope she recovers and has as good a result as possible.

Our local ER can't reject care from anyone. A lot of folks with medicaid use it for everything because they don't require the $25 co-pay while going to a regular doc they have to pay the $25 co-pay before seeing the doctor. It really clogs the ER system up. They are trying to extend the hours of urgent care to take some load off the ER for minor [bleep]. It seems stupid to me, but what do I know.

Yeppers!
When they ask about insurance, I tell them we have government mandated Medicare and cash!
Oddly, when you say "Cash!", their eyes 😳 pop open and the bill gets reduced.
Went in for a test one time.
I was informed the "test" was $5K and they couldn't schedule the procedure until it was ok'd by the insurance company.
"We don't have insurance, we have cash."
The receptionist went back to her computer and ticked and clicked away for a couple of minutes.
She looks at me with a smile and says, "If you pay cash, the procedure will be $1500 and we can schedule you today. If you'd like to have a seat, someone will be with you in just a moment."
Twenty minutes later, I'm in the back being inspected, injected, infected, rejected and dejected.
It was worth handing over 15 Benjamins to find out that the problem was NOT what I feared! 😛

But what about Alice???

😅😂😂🤣🤣🤣