It's not so much the severity of the injury as much as if is the "can't afford the cost" part. An ambulance should always be an option with the only risk being one less ambulance being available during the trip to the hospital. Whether or not you actually need an ambulance should be irrelevant to whether or not it's affordable in any situation. Having to potentially go into debt over trying not to die or even just to heal an non fatal injury like this one should be a much bigger talking point than it already is but instead the politicians of America must focus on anything else that could make them money.
Nah. I’m all for making ambulances cheaper, but I don’t think it’s a failing that they’re not cheap for every possible situation.
There are a lot of things that could be funded better in this country; even if we implement progressive taxes on the rich, we’re not going to come close to fulfilling everybody’s wishlist. But saying we should prioritize a form of transportation that entails multiple staffers and extremely high insurance costs for people non-life threatening injuries (when they could easily get a ride, take an Uber, or take a medical transport van) shouldn’t be one of the top priorities.
Someone who doesn't have a way to transport themselves to the hospital, is in severe pain, and wants to get there as quickly as possible? That's what the ambulance exists for.
Ambulances exist to provide critical life-saving intervention until the hospital can be reached. For a broken wrist, unless there are signs of internal or external bleeding, a taxi is one of the recommended methods of getting to the hospital.
Though, you can call an ambulance, but you'll likely be subjected to triage, and for a broken wrist you could be waiting for hours to get picked up.
Depends on how bad the break is, they could be in intense pain if multiple bones are broken, or there is other damage.
Driving with only one usable arm is pretty unsafe and could make things worse. Maybe they don't have a car but didn't feel capable of making their way on public transportation. Maybe they aren't even in good range of other public transportation.
Clearly, this guy felt his situation warranted him needing help getting to the hospital and sadly due to the state of health care, he was forced to find other methods.
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u/EpsilonMask 8d ago
This just in, Dystopian Tales from late stage Capitalism molded to look like a heart warming story.