And in other news...

[kyburg]

He said buses from Clark County, Nev. and Army Blackhawk helicopters from Fort Irwin, Calif., arrived to help ambulances and medical helicopters transport the injured. About 44 passengers were taken to seven nearby hospitals including in Las Vegas, Cortinas said late Sunday.

One tour bus hit another one on the I15 outside of Baker, California - that's the main artery in and out of Las Vegas.

I seem to recall posting something here sometime ago about the state of emergency services on that road - i.e., the total LACK of them. Which trauma center did they evacuate to? Eight to Loma Linda, six to Las Vegas. At least five other hospitals took patients.

Take a good look at the map next time you think you want to drive the road to Las Vegas from Los Angeles. Note the entire LACK of anything between here and there, except for enlarged exits containing a gas station or two.

Nice the Army had helicopters. Sheesh.

You want me to go to Las Vegas? No.

EDIT: I'm sorry, I misread the article. ALL the patients went to Loma Linda's trauma center - eight of them, six of them critical.


Baker to Loma Linda


Baker to Las Vegas

CHEAP ASS BASTARDS!!!

EDIT PART DEUX: I'm sure I can see these images because I cached them when I generated them using Mapquest. If you can't see them, just go to Mapquest and check the driving directions in both examples. It'll make your blood boil. Honest.

Comments

[dafydd.livejournal.com]

kshandra pointed me to this.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean here. At a guess, I'd say that 95% of the country is more than 6 minutes away from the nearest fire engine or ambulance. And that includes many thousands of miles of busy highways and country roads. The big train derailments in the Midwest over the last 5 years were similar situations: The situation was too big for whatever is local, so mutual aid is called in.

If I may be so blunt, is this something more than a case of a city mouse realizing that even 911 can't always provide speedy help? What exactly is your complaint?

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

Speedy would be one thing - we're talking hours to respond. With Las Vegas the nearest trauma center, the only reason these victims were transported back to Loma Linda was that Las Vegas was turning patients away - why, likely because they haven't got the funds to keep the trauma center open any longer. Or because they wouldn't take patients from California - which is equally stupid.

There are callboxes...but no equipment or people to respond any more. What's the point of having terrific communications when there's no backup?

The lack of response is new. The distance has always been - the lack of proximity to civilization has always been. But there used to be an attitude towards those realities of dealing with them instead of handing off the liability to the traveler. You literally take your life in your hands to travel there by car these days - any kind of breakdown, and you are on your own in one of the most unhospitable environments the western states has to offer. It used to be 20 min for the Highway Patrol to get to you. Now, it may be two hours. You aren't transported to the nearest trauma center - you are transported to the nearest not-for-profit facility with a trauma center in the state of California.

Las Vegas wants to attract visitors, but to my mind, they don't adequately shoulder their share of the liability. Look at the distances - those patients SHOULD have gone to Las Vegas. They are comparable facilities (when open, LAUMC is a premier teaching facility) and Las Vegas was closer.

Not a peep out of the media. They just blew it off. I wonder how many of those critical patients died in transit.

[ziranath.livejournal.com]

Call boxes are pretty useless, though. Me and my roommate broke down near one when we were moving to Wisconsin, and as the engine was completely fucked, tried calling for help on one, as neither of us had a cell phone. No good; no answer for the entirety of the answer we stayed there trying to call for help. I ended up going to a trucker's stop and asking for a cell phone to call Triple A, who towed us to Baker, CA (which I know hate with all my heart and soul), because nobody else would stop for the hour we waited.

Sigh.

[moonwalker.livejournal.com]

Last I recalled driving through there, it was desert. Not much of anything besides that Whiskey Pete and other casinos on the border of CA and NV. Not enough population to support a hospital in the middle of the drive. You do take your chances driving along it, either from accidents or cars breaking down in the desert.

Do you know if there are any emergency phones on the roadside?

It is helpful that the Army was able to fly the injured to the hospital.

Mary MMM

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

California has a policy regarding hospitals. No matter how sparsely populated, there is always at least one hospital large enough to stablize and transport - a district hospital.

But when you're talking trauma, it's another ball of wax. They were discussing about a year ago how Las Vegas was going to lose its trauma center due to cost - and the reality proposed with that was that all trauma patients were going to be transported to Loma Linda. Even if you got clobbered in the city itself. The entire southern portion of Nevada, parts of Arizona and California were going to be covered by one hospital near the easternmost boundary of the Los Angeles metropolis.

Bang, zoom - lookee here. They're doing it. Even when the trauma center is supposedly open. And closer.

Costs

[forestcats.livejournal.com]

Nevada had a huge exodus of physicians and medical supply because there was no cap on damages. Yet in fact what costs the majority is FRAUD. People who sue in the hopes that the case won't see the light of the court room and get paid off.

LIfe is a gamble

[forestcats.livejournal.com]

Literal meaning. Look into the LA area whose ER situation is far beyond critical. Thanks to the stranglehold of the government on Medicare, HMO's and the litigious society, LA county doesn't have enough ER's to go around let alone ambulance services. Every day people are turned away because there aren't enough beds, nurses or physicians to cover the fewer ERs available. Medical companies are required to wait 6+ months to get their bills paid to them. As example, when an ambulance company turns in any billing for transporting a Medicare patient, automatically Medicare (government) refuses that first billing, they require a physician fill out a form to determine if it was necessary to use an ambulance to move the patient. The paperwork jungle increases all in the hopes that the billing gets lost so the trip doesn't get covered. Presently for every 2 minutes a doctor spends with a patient there is 18 minutes of Medicare paperwork that has to be filled out in writing, computer forms aren't allowed. Because of patient confidentiality laws only the physician is allowed to do this paperwork... The rates of malpractice rise in proportion to the distance that the physician is located from the nearest ER. URGH!!!
Its not that there aren't commmitted people in the field but no one wants to pay...

Re: LIfe is a gamble

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

*hops up and down angrily* And nobody is saying a damn thing about it!!!

[washuotaku.livejournal.com]

I'm just glad I don't live in a desert with no civilazation in sight. Wheeee ~~~~~~

I see the mapquest maps... I would pick Las Vegas anyday, then I can gamble!

I too was driving that stretch of road

[turandot.livejournal.com]

The only alternative is to have a facility in the middle of that road, but you just know no one would want to work or live nearby (it helps if doctors live not too far from a trauma center). Also, whilel it may seem coldhearted, with tight funds come priorities such as looking out for the local population. For all we know, the Las Vegas trauma center already was filled over capacity.

As for why no one is talking about it? *laughs* Why talk about how both federal and state funding cuts, in combination with the fact that private funds dry out in a weak economy would cause stuff like this to happen? This would distract us from the moral imperative that directs us to Fight the Iraqi for oil bring freedom to Iraq. And no one wants that, god forbid.