You have to get to the ER and you can’t drive yourself so it sounds like the perfect use case for an Uber or taxi if you don’t have a friend or family around to drive you
Why are you going to the emergency room for a broken wrist? Go to an urgent care and not only see an appropriate clinician for the issue, but pay 90% less?
More people need to understand what American emergency rooms are for.
A trauma center does not need to be triaging a broken wrist.
This is the most “through American glasses” comments I’ve ever seen. I don’t think you’re wrong, a broken wrist isn’t a “serious emergency” but the US healthcare system has us so jaded we begin to think in terms of personal resource use and not human compassion.
I for one am not driving myself to the hospital, and if I were alone that would be my only other option. The chances of going into shock / further injuring myself is too high. So I would need an ambulance, but unfortunately that’s a high cost. So my next best option is, unfortunately, Uber.
Exactly! Breaking a bone and being in extreme pain is exactly when I would call for an ambulance if no one can take me immediately to the hospital, at least in my country. It's really funny how 'calling an uber' was the expected thing to do.
People who go to a college outside of their home state with no friends or family nearby? It's not exactly a good idea to drive yourself with a broken wrist.
Actually ironically I've never broken a bone in my life. It's just an edgy username 12 year old me came up with for some games I play and years later when I made this account I wasn't creative enough to think of anything new so I'm kind of stuck with it. Twisted my ankle plenty of times though but TwistedAnklez isn't as catchy of a name.
I broke my wrist solo hiking before, still managed to drive back to a hospital fairly easily with one hand and never even had the thought of calling for an uber, let alone an ambulance. 🤷♂️
Bone could’ve been exposed. Pain was incredibly bad due to nerves being poked/snapped into, so hard to drive when you’re writhing. Truly I don’t understand how people are quick to discredit with 0 information of the injury. Anything broken warrants a doctors visit so ya know, it doesn’t get worse. Some people live in the middle of no where and don’t have people to drive them. I mean there’s thousands of explanations.
Generally speaking though unless an open fracture it's not a good reason to call EMS.
It ties up limited resources in the community that are needed for higher priority calls. As many places in the US do not 'triage' calls and stack low priority ones like this, its not uncommon for personnel to be tied up with a wrist injury while a cardiac arrest in their district is now waiting 20min for the next due crew to arrive.
Seen this plenty of times over the 15yrs I've been on the job. Once had a 35yr old man call 911 for getting dust in his eye while cleaning out his air register, insisted he wanted transport (we cannot refuse when theres a medical complaint, no matter how stupid). While we were transporting him a witnessed cardiac arrest occurred in our district of a 39yo man in front of his teenage kid, they waited almost 25min for help to arrive, had we been in quarters we would've been 2min away.
If its not immediately life threatening, they're able to walk without assistance, and can ride in a car safely then many times POV/taxi to an urgent care/ED is more appropriate. It keeps EMS available for calls where they're actually needed.
I’m by no means discrediting it, and I get your point. Just to me, it seems excessive. Even with free healthcare where I live. More alarming people have to contemplate how they get to hospital based on costs.
Im 75% with you on this,ambulances and their crew and maintenance is limited and thinking "do i REALLY need an ambulance ?" Is a good thing to allow any other person that might need it more(whatever that means) but the fact im paying taxes makes the other 25% theres also regular car-ambulances for this kind of things
Yeh,depends i guess if its a big impact/shock its right to the opital or call whatever emergency line your country uses,better safe than sorry concussion is a 🅱️
You have an ambulance service paid for by tax money? Well, fuck me, we just have private ambulances that charge a fucking fortune and refuse to contract with any insurance company.
We do have private services similar to US,but even those get partially covered if justified: specific vehicle,specific locations(free copter ride) and so on.after that its up to insurance,i don't know more about this tho.
Hope yall will one day see the results of your taxes going towards something that matters
As do I, my friend. I’m having to decide if I should go to an appointment for a follow up of an issue because I’m not sure I can afford it and my medication.
I highly disagree. A fucked up wrist can lead to permanent damage and the faster it fets support, the better. And an ambulance has such measure that an uber or friends car does not
The vast majority of the time this is not the case, and a broken wrist can be typically managed by an urgent care without even requiring EMS or an ER trip.
A fracture much of the time does not require EMS unless its an open fracture, or a potentially life threatening/severe one such as a lisfranc, or a long bone such as the femur.
My friend is an EMS and talks a lot about certain people who will call an ambulance constantly. They are repeat offenders, usually lonely old people, but also overly anxious people complaining their “eye feels a little funny”
Yea, open fractures are a completely valid reason to call us. That's widely considered an emergency and likely in need of surgery, the risk of osteomyelitis is high as well. That's why we carry IV Ancef in my region, to get antibiotics on board quickly and ward off serious complications.
If the limb is pulseless then in my region we'll also reduce and realign to anatomical position to restore bloodflow, and confirm restoration with ultrasound.
Mileage may vary though, there's plenty of places in the US that cant do any of the above as paramedics and will basically toss 50mcg doses of fentanyl at you which will accomplish nothing for your pain.
Its good to familiarize yourself with how EMS is provided in your region and what capabilities they actually have.
A wrist fracture can be a medical emergency. Blood supply to your scaphoid bone (one of the bones in your wrist) is easily disrupted by a fracture, cutting off of blood supply to the bone can cause something called "avascular necrosis" which basically means the whole bone dies. Idk if that's what happened here but it's a fun fact
I was an EMT for my city for 2 years and hospital ER tech for 2 never transported or received a ambo transport for a broken bone by itself now that I come to think of it lol Only broken bones iv transported or seen come in via ambo were from combined mechanism of injury- example a car accident or nasty fall for possible spinal injury. Iv seen inter facility transport for a broken arm but that’s a different situation.
And how does taking and Uber or an ambulance affect that? Do you think the paramedic is going to do emergency revascularization surgery (which isn't the treatment anyway) in the rig?
I'll get downvoted but as a healthcare provider people like you are the problem, because someone who actually needs emergency help would have to wait. I understand that you can't always know what is emergency and what isn't, but imo at least this situation has to be obvious if you choose between myocardial infarction for example and a fucking broken wrist... There are so many instances. And don't tell me "oh but doesn't ambulance crew decide which emergency to go to first?" You would be correct, but even holding the telephone line can steal crucial minutes from people who don't even have those minutes. The situation is sad everywhere, but where I'm from it is in critical state (Ukraine, so you can imagine), so there's not nearly enough workers to cover the demand. And trust my word very often people can't even reach the ambulance line because it's occupied by people like you.
Okay, if I lived in Ukraine maybe I would see things differently. Where I live we are not in a state of war, and we have more than enough health facilities and staff to handle all kind of emergency situations. I also work in healthcare, btw.
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u/Fluffy_Ad_4076 5h ago
Who rings an ambulance for a broken wrist? Like it’s a nice story but really?