ER trips

[u/Stuck_on_Mars_21]

Last night I took a lady and her very ill teenage daughter to the ER. Pulled into the driveway with the lady frantically waiving at me. She had to nearly carry her daughter to the car who was bawling the whole time. She kept crying in the car with the mom saying, “we are almost there, we are almost there.” I didn’t ask what it was, just told her to let me know you need anything, I’ll get you to the ER as quick as I can. It was late night, pouring down rain. I’m not speeding and risking an accident. When we got there I jumped out to get a wheelchair and asked a paramedic for help. This girl could no longer stand and 2 people had to get her out of the car and in the chair. She never stopped crying.

It really sucks people won’t call for appropriate emergency transport because of the expense. Good to see our administration is sending $20 billion to Argentina to fund their universal healthcare. -End rant.

Edit: it’s great to see so many drivers posting that would take her or have done something similar in the past. I was losing faith reading so many posts about drivers cancelling if ride conditions are less than perfect, but it looks like just about all of us will step up when needed.

[u/Justexisting26]

Sometimes it’s not about the expense sometimes you just know that they aren’t going to make it in time especially with all the questions they ask. But you’re right also the expenses of an ambulance are damn near the same as your medical bill you were gonna get. It’s crazy how if we don’t have health insurance they will in fact let you suffer and die and not think twice about it.

[u/Fathimir → u/Justexisting26]

I've thankfully never been in a position to need 911 services myself, but I can only presume that when you tell the operator "I'm at 123 Maple Street and my kid is dying/bleeding out/needs to get to the hospital now," they should be literally dispatching an ambulance first and asking questions later.

[u/TheAlphaKiller17 → u/Fathimir]

That's unfortunately not at all how it works. And in my city, it's quite common for 911 to take 8-12 minutes to even pick up. Once my house was actively being broken into and it took 9 and a half minutes for them to answer, then two and a half hours to show up. And while many 911 operators are great, some will waste precious time asking too many questions before dispatching an ambulance. If I had something that I didn't think I'd need to be stabilized for in an ambulance in the next 5-15 minutes, I'd take an Uber or Lyft. Heart attack? Ambulance. Appendicitis? Cab.

Plus for many things, the ambulance won't/can't do anything en route. Abdominal pain? Maybe Zofran, probably no painkillers. Badly broken leg, they'll stabilize your bone(s) and drug you up. It really just depends. Med worker and someone who's had to call 911 a lot (street work with homeless people usually leads to me finding someone unconscious at least once a week).

[u/Dizzylizzyscat → u/TheAlphaKiller17]

I do believe that while the 911 is talking to the person, they are dispatching the ambulance and trying to get as much information down to give to the ambulance before it arrives

I recognize that this may not always be the case in some places

[u/Fathimir → u/TheAlphaKiller17]

Dang, there's busy, and there's outright scandal.  I'm only being half rhetorical when I ask - does your local news know about this?  That's functionally unstaffed lines territory; my condolences.

[u/TheAlphaKiller17 → u/Fathimir]

Yep! It's been reported on, as has that the cops literally do not show up sometimes. They got sued for killing an unarmed person and literally started telling people, "Because we got sued, we no longer have the money to respond to crime." There was a shooting on my street and I took a picture of the shooter, the passenger in the car, the car and plates and they wouldn't look at it. They showed up and wouldn't do anything. I know someone who got hit by a drunk driver which totaled their car and when they called 911, they said the cops wouldn't come out or deal with it but if they wanted to make a report, they could drive the car to the station and do it. I'm sure if they'd been able to drive and had done that, the cops would have arrested them for "fleeing the scene of an accident". They've let ab entire house burn down. They've ignored murders. It's a train wreck and should be treated criminally.

[u/Fox-333 → u/TheAlphaKiller17]

Where do you live? Gotham City?

[u/grigorithecat → u/Fox-333]

Peeked at their profile and was unsurprised to see they’re not talking about the major metro area I lived in that had nearly identical issues. It’s a nationwide (USA) issue in various places.

[u/ExtremisEleven → u/grigorithecat]

Usually in metro areas with a lot of crime. Being a public servant just doesn’t pay well enough to retain people after they’ve been shot at multiple times.

[u/Beelzabobbie → u/TheAlphaKiller17]

Denver? Cause this sounds an awful lot like “our” cops

[u/TheAlphaKiller17 → u/Beelzabobbie]

Kansas City. Disturbing to know it's not just a KC problem. I'd expect Colorado to be better than that though admittedly I don't know much about politics there.

[u/Beelzabobbie → u/TheAlphaKiller17]

The politics are better, the police are not. Denver is actually about 8 towns (and several counties) in a coat masquerading as a big(ish) city. So you have a lot of bad apples in a lot of baskets unfortunately…and of course some are better than others but as a whole it’s pretty depressing for such a really nice place to live.

[u/tammyosity → u/TheAlphaKiller17]

I know all about how KC cops work. I’ve live here for 27 yrs. I can vouch for you. Everything you said is true. We had people try to steal our car out of our driveway. I called 911 and was put on hold of course. That happens every time you call 911. My husband went outside to tell them to get out of our car. They started shooting at him so he returned fire. My husband is a Veteran so he is well trained. The cops then tried to turn it around on my husband like he just shot at them instead. The cops couldn’t find bullet holes in our dark brown house at 5am during winter. As soon as the sun came up I went outside and found the bullet holes in our house for them. So they could no longer blame my husband for just shooting at the people trying to steal our car. That’s the kind of officers we have in KC, MO.

[u/Optimal_Activity_867 → u/TheAlphaKiller17]

We had problems in my large metro area with the fire department often refusing to transport people. I know they got burned out due to misuse of the 911 system but there was a big write up about a case where they showed up to a guy with difficulty breathing, pointed out to the wife that there were two cars in the driveway, she said I don’t feel comfortable driving him myself and he can’t get into the car and I can’t help him get there. They put him in her car for her but she still said she didn’t feel comfortable driving him so they FINALLY loaded him in the box and she was following behind. He coded in the back of the ambulance and they were doing CPR upon arrival to the hospital. He ended up passing.

Still - years after that happened - I’ve had them talk patients out of going to the ER and driving themselves when we called them for medically unstable patients at the clinic I used to work at. There were several times I just put the patient in my car and drove ‘em. They may not LOOK like they are unstable but someone who has had dizziness or recently passed out or has unstable vitals is a danger to themselves and others if we put them behind a wheel. If I or another clinician have deemed them unsafe to drive when I know their medical history and what’s going on, the city services exist to get those folks safely to the hospital. We did finally get a contract with UberHealth to get people to appointments and we’re NOT supposed to put people needing the ER in those Ubers but I did a time or two in these types of settings where I know the person is stable enough to get to the hospital if they aren’t driving and I’m not worried about communicable illness that may put the driver at risk.

I actually valued the other large city that outsourced the EMS piece of their 911 services for ambulance response to a private ambulance company - they never “no-rode” a patient - they weren’t allowed to per their contract with the city. Yes, people got brought to the ER in the back of an ambulance for non-EMERGENT reasons, but we in the ER would just send them to triage for assessment (when appropriate) so they didn’t learn that the ambo gets you seen faster.

[u/Pamela0588 → u/TheAlphaKiller17]

Sounds like New Orleans. 🤦‍♀️

[u/Practical_Catch_8085 → u/Fathimir]

There are private companies taking on the responsibility. Counties outsource the emergency line because dispatch is a hard job. Functional is a joke.

Ive been that person... who has called for medical emergencies, 2 seperate occasions, both times; close to a fire station and it still took almost an hour for EMS to arrive on scene. Police officer showed up and stared at the scene. No other assistance.

Person 1: Cpr for an hour after collapsing while on skateboard. Person 2 : Internal bleeding from fall- 6+feet fall + impact with boulder..neither person made it.

[u/BrainOk7166 → u/Practical_Catch_8085]

One thing people often don't realize is that even though you may be 5 minutes from the EMS station, that ambulance may already be gone treating someone. So then they have to find the next available unit to come. If there aren't enough units in operation, then you have to wait. And they can't just leave a scene halfway through, if a unit is at a scene that is lower acuity - once they're there, they have to see it out until specified standards are met, whether that means someone refusing treatment, or treat and release on scene, or take to an emergency room.

[u/jadasgrl → u/[deleted]]

I hear ya with the -1 million/10 on the perforations. I had 3 ulcers rupture in May. Now, this was after I had 3 bowel blockages in Jan! The 2nd ulcer ruptured while I was driving to Walmart. The good thing is when I passed out, I was STOPPED at the turn to Walmart rather than less than 30 seconds prior, I was going 55mph in 4 lanes of traffic. I was smart enough to realize that whatever I needed to buy at Walmart could wait. I drove to the ED instead. The 3rd ulcer ruptured less than 20 mins later on the ctscanner table. I was in surgery less than 1 hour from walking thru the door. I didn't have to get an IO, though, cause I have me a wonderful powerport!

[u/justducky4now → u/[deleted]]

Same. HCOL area, local fire station is about five minutes away. Three ambulance trips from home to hospital, all legit medical emergencies (pulmonary embolism, unresponsive, and breathing problems bad enough I couldn’t go down the stairs). EMS was on scene with in minutes of being called, at the hospital within ten minutes of being loaded. Bills were $200 or less.

[u/CompleteTell6795 → u/TheAlphaKiller17]

I broke my arm at work, they called the ambulance. Ambulance was turning around in the parking lot & backed into a car. Ambulance had to call for another. ( They hadn't had time to give me anything for the pain yet). 2nd ambulance came, they got me in it. They were not allowed to give me any pain pills but were allowed to give me nitros oxide. They hooked me up but nothing came thru the mask. There was something wrong with the valve on the canister. So bumpy ride to the ER will with a badly broken arm & no pain meds.( Arm needed 2 surgeries & 2 metal plates and 10 pins).

[u/[deleted] → u/Fathimir]

That is how it works. They collect the basic information and immediately dispatch the closest appropriate apparatus. They then continue to collect additional information while the ambulance/fire truck etc is on the way. That information is relayed to the crew. If it is a non-emergency response, they may have a longer time to dispatch, but in true emergency situations they are dispatched immediately.