Injury

When ever you travel on vacation, one of your concerns is:”What happens if you are injured and need a doctor?” You always have the comfort of your own doctor and hospital when around home. Dateline: April 9, 2009, Lookout Mountain, Chattanooga, Tennessee……Klutzy man falls in the street. On the way home from the Masters we decided to do some sightseeing. Our friends had never been to a Civil War Battlefield so we decided to go to Lookout Mountain, the site of the “Battle above the Clouds”. After visiting the Battlefield, we were coming out of the visitor’s center, I was reading a brochure, stepped off a curb wrong, and fell to the street. I remember thinking “Oh boy, this is going to hurt”. It did. Now I know why Pro Wrestlers make small cuts above their eyes to promote bleeding. I had a small scrape above my eye but looking at the amount of blood you’d swear I had a massive head wound. My right pinky finger was bent completely back against the back of my hand. I was sure I broke it. I actually moved it and it popped back to the correct position. There was a large gash at the last joint, next to the palm, of that pinky. Our friend who was with, an ex EMTI, said it definitely needed stitches. There were other bumps and scraps but the eye and finger were the concerns. Here is where the fun begins. After getting directions, at the visitor’s center, where the nearest hospital was, we headed over to it…..about 20 minutes away. As I checked in at the receptionist desk, I said I had heard horror stories of waiting for hours to be seen. I wasn’t in real pain so if it was going to take a while we’d go elsewhere……not sure where, maybe up to Nashville, but we weren’t going to sit around. She said “It shouldn’t take long…things are moving rather quickly”. “Shouldn’t take long” was approx. 45 minutes before I got called. A nurse got all my pertinent information and said “our rooms are full and it might take awhile”. Of course this was after he had put my ID bracelet on and I was now under their care. I told him we were from out of town, on our way home, and wanted to get going. He left, came back 10 minutes later and took me to a room. Within 15 minutes a Doctor came in. He looked at the eye, took the bandage off, left it off and said it would be fine. It had stopped bleeding. Didn’t even bother to clean it. He took the little finger bent it forward and asked if it hurt…it didn’t. He then bend it backward and asked if it hurt….*#!&*#.....YES…..&%^$#@!!! He had opened the gash so you could see the bone and tendons. He said “yep it needs stitches; I’ll get my nurse to clean it up. We’ll also need to schedule x-rays to make sure the bone isn’t chipped or cracked.” 15 minutes later, enter Goober Pyle. Gomer Pyle would have been an upgrade. This “Nurse” must have been on OJT. He first started cleaning the around wound with alcohol which was OK, however he was holding the injured finger while doing it, instead of the whole hand, which was not comfortable to say the least! He just did a half a--ed job of cleaning and then left to scheduled an x-ray. Over the course of the next hour Goober came in and set up the cart with everything needed for stitches. He was pouring alcohol into a pan when he spilled it all over the cart. He didn’t even attempt to clean it up. He mentioned that he couldn’t understand why it was taking so long for the x-rays. After 60-75 minutes. the doctor came in and said he is going to sew it up before the x-rays but I couldn’t check out until he had a chance to see them. He then produced a needle that was at least 3” long and was going to “numb” up the finger. Did that hurt???? %$#*&%^…. YES….. *&^$%#@*..... Novocain at a Dentist office is a piece of cake. After washing the wound out, he stitched it up. 15 minutes later another Nurse came and took me for x-rays. That took 30 minutes. Enter Goober to bandage me up with a splint. My granddaughter could do a better job of bandaging. He was completely un-coordinated and made a huge mess of the bandaging. He was not gentle or concerned about the injury and I was glad the novicane was still working. Otherwise, Goober and I would have had words!! It would have made a great comedy sketch. (we re-bandaged at the hotel that night). The doctor looked at the x-rays and found the finger wasn’t cracked or had any chips, so I was discharged. The doctor gave me a prescription for pain killers and said it could be filled at the hospital pharmacy. After 10-15 minutes, the Pharmacy said it didn’t have a contract with Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Iowa so we would have to pay cash. After over 4 hours at the Hospital we were finally back on the road. My conclusions are: do not believe them when they say “It shouldn’t take too long”, avoid all injuries in or around Chattanooga, make sure your insurance is acceptable when traveling the southern states, and finally before anything else, ask if Goober is on duty.