my lung collapsed :(

[Vette73]

Originally posted by: Goosemaster

Originally posted by: 1sikbITCH

Originally posted by: wasssup

Originally posted by: Rage187
least it was only 20mins before they realized that they almost screwed up.

thanks for being a man and not trying to sue.

I'm a dork like that, my friends were telling me to sue but i told them:

#1: i'm still alive with no problems
#2: i like to earn my money the "normal" way...of course had something actually happened to me that caused permanent injury to me all bets are off.

When awarding damages in a lawsuit, the plaintiff is allowed to be made whole again, and that's it. That is to say, unless them missing the x-ray and taking too long to see you caused you some sort of injury or damage that you can prove, you have nothing to sue over.

You have to show that the extra time and missed X-Ray caused you harm. Your lung was already collapsed, and did not become "more" collapsed or lead to further complications because of the extra time. That does not appear to be the case here, at least so far.

Btw, the hospital has copies of every single piece of paper they gave you, and much much more. Under the Federal HIPAA act, you are entitled to all of your medical records. Just contact their medical record department and request your records.

Basically, send a letter comdeming the neglect you faced to the hospital adminsitrators.

:thumbsup:

Thats what I would do. Something went wrong for them to send you out like that. Also doctors are really bad for stereotyping people and causing more injury or even in some cases death.

I know this first hand as when I was in a motorcycle accident the doctor said he was going to give me some pain meds. My roommate, who came to help me, told me after the doctor left that they were giving me some MAJOR sh1t. Well she tells the nurse and doctor I am not a stereotypical motorcycle riding 20something college student that gets drunk every weekend and smokes dope. Well they did not care, or listen. To them I was a typical motorcycle riding 20something college student that gets drunk every weekend and smokes dope so my tolerance must be high. As soon as they gave it to me I started to sweat and I hear this beep and I am out. I wake up with the doctor and 2 others looking at me and 1 rubbing my chest while my roommate was wiping a pile of sweat off me. My blood pressure crashed and my hearth almost stopped. They had to give me something else to bring me back up and it really messed me up, almost worse then the accident.

So yea doctors are human and make mistakes, but when they stereotype people, that only makes for major problems in a life or death situations. So write a letter telling what happened so maybe it can be reviewed and learned from and not happen again.

 

[chcarnage]

Originally posted by: wasssup
For those of you who have had a collapsed lung -- i'm guessing it's happened multiple times? Seems like if happens once to you, it will happen again.

My uncle has had a one sided pneumothorax when he was about fourty years old. In the ca. ten years after this incident he hasn't had any new lung problems. So the pneumothoraxes don't necessarily come back.

He is slim and a bit sporty and nonsmoker, by the way.

It is inapprehensible that the hospital let you go before the doctor looked at the X-ray. But it looks like everything went well and in case you should suffer another lung collapse, you now know the symptoms well. Cheer up and enjoy the sunday

 

[waggy]

Originally posted by: chcarnage

Originally posted by: wasssup
For those of you who have had a collapsed lung -- i'm guessing it's happened multiple times? Seems like if happens once to you, it will happen again.

My uncle has had a one sided pneumothorax when he was about fourty years old. In the ca. ten years after this incident he hasn't had any new lung problems. So the pneumothoraxes don't necessarily come back.

He is slim and a bit sporty and nonsmoker, by the way.

It is inapprehensible that the hospital let you go before the doctor looked at the X-ray. But it looks like everything went well and in case you should suffer another lung collapse, you now know the symptoms well. Cheer up and enjoy the sunday

yeap i was very skinny and althetic when they happened to me.

IF you have to many on one side they suggest going in and looking for any permanant scarring on the lung. thankfully did not get to that point with me.

but man getting that tube shoved into your chest sucks.

 

[Molondo]

Six hours in canada? You must work for CNN.

Stop pulling numbers out of your arse.

 

[Mark R]

Wow. An alarming story. I'm glad that it all got sorted out in the end.

That sounds like a very unusual visit to the ER. However, there can be no doubt that it was negligent of them to send you home without first checking the X-ray.

It's one thing for a doctor to think of a particular diagnosis but interpret the results incorrectly and mistakenly give the wrong diagnosis. It's another entirely for a doctor simply not to check for a potentially serious diagnosis.

A common cause for this is a shift change - where one doc, goes off and another takes over his cases - often unsure what has happened and what tests have been ordered, etc. Someone forgets about an X-ray and it just sits on the side for a bit.

However, most places have a 'double-check' system in place. Where although the ER doc gets looks at the X-ray, etc and makes the diagnosis - the X-ray and other tests then get sent to specialists who then double check them - and if there is a discrepancy then they alert the ER.

I'm a radiologist - so I routinely check ER X-rays. Occasionally, there's a significant problem that wasn't spotted by the ER doc, so I have to drop the X-ray and records back to the ER for them to sort out.

I think it's important that you write to the hospital and ask them what actually happened, and why you were allowed home without the X-ray having been checked (if, indeed that is actually what happened). They will certainly have a complaints office or legal office, so the first thing to do is phone them and find out who the appropriate person to write to is.

 

[HamSupLo]

hey OP, i hope you have insurance!

 

[wasssup]

Originally posted by: HamSupLo
hey OP, i hope you have insurance!

Yup, i've got insurance...according to my insurance company i'll only end up paying $150/day, though I can't wait to see what the final bill ends up being.

 

[waggy]

Originally posted by: wasssup

Originally posted by: HamSupLo
hey OP, i hope you have insurance!

Yup, i've got insurance...according to my insurance company i'll only end up paying $150/day, though I can't wait to see what the final bill ends up being.

heh mine avarged $35k but that was ohh 13 yrs ago heh

 

[wasssup]

$35k?!?!

I :heart: health insurance.

 

[Miramonti]

But yeah...apparently it was severe enough that if I had waited a little bit longer a chain reaction would've occured and I would've suffocated.

But the disaster that could have happened didn't, there are no worries about suing, since the original misdiagnosis didn't set you back other than a little inconvenience and briefly prolonged discomfort. If they hadn't caught it at all and neglected to check the xrays, you [or your estate...] might have had a worthy claim.

Good to hear you're recovering. :thumbsup:

 

[Tiamat]

Originally posted by: Pepsi90919

They made me wait for ~20 minutes to go in,

wait a second, i thought the american health system kicked ass?

20 minutes is pretty fast service for non-bloody ailments. I was in the ER and was about to complain after waiting 90 minutes and suddenly there was a dude being carted in with 3 bullet holes and blood soaked. I quickly got back to my seat and patiently waited for another 45 minutes before getting assistance.

 

[Anghang]

glad you're ok...definitely a good call to go to the ER with your chest pains...my uncle went through something similar, except he didn't make it at the end of the day ...it was very sudden, but it wasn't his lungs, it was his heart...he had been complaining of chest pains periodically throughout the day, assumption was that it was just heartburn...he was able to get through the workday...but then he collapsed and had a heart attack ...in the end they diagnosed that all the chest pains he had during the day wasn't heartburn, but actually mini heart attacks...ultimately taxing the heart the whole day until it couldn't take it anymore

sorry for going off on that tangent...again, good call checking yourself into the ER before it was too late :thumbsup:

 

[iliopsoas]

Originally posted by: wasssup
This sucks. My lung apparently collapsed Wednesday morning, I had trouble walking/breathing and had sharp pains in my back/chest/neck. Thought it would pass (and I had a huge meeting that afternoon, didn't want to go through the hassle of trying to get out of it only to find out it was something stupid). Still hurt after work, I could barely drive (every bump I went over exacerbated the pain), so off to ER I went.

They made me wait for ~20 minutes to go in, once in there I heard people say stuff like "what's he doing here, he's young and in shape, nothing's wrong with him, why does this say urgent." It'd be great if they were doing it to make me feel better, but they were serious and made me wait for 45 minutes for a doctor. Doctor came, asked me a few questions, took my EKG and sent me off for chest xrays.

Came back to room, doc saw me again ~45 minutes later and told me nothing was wrong with me and that I should just take ibuprofin, that he guessed it was just a problem with the sack around my heart being irritated. I asked why the pain was on the right side of my body instead of the left (heart issues = pain on left side), he said the pain can go either way...

They discharge me, 20 minutes later they call and tell me I have to come back immediately. They discharged me without waiting for my xray to come back, apparently one of my lungs had completely collapsed and I needed some type of emergency surgery.

So I go back to ER, paperwork still in hand (never made it to my car) and ~2 hours later the doctors come and do their thing. I'm still in ER, my sister comes and I tell her to keep the paperwork in her purse immediately (I had/have no plans to sue, but they screwed up bigtime, I wanted to hold onto the paperwork). Unfortunately, my awesome sister took all the paperwork out because she scribbled my boss's phone number on the back of one sheet and I had asked her to call my boss up to tell him I wouldn't be able to make it in to work. She never put it back in her purse, so all the freakin paperwork is now gone.

But yeah...apparently it was severe enough that if I had waited a little bit longer a chain reaction would've occured and I would've suffocated. And here I was ready to go home and wait a day to see if it got better...

I'm still really pissed that I don't have any of the paperwork anymore...I had no plans to sue (i wouldn't be here without them) but this was a major event in my life and it would've been great to have paperwork detailing everything, including their misdiagnosis.

Mistakes happen. But luckily for you, they caught their mistake in time.

As for suing, you would have a better chance of winning if the mistake resulted in some harm to you. 20 minutes delay in treatment probably resulted in little harm to you so you would have a hard time winning a lawsuit.

 

[wasssup]

I never wanted to sue...

In all honesty, i'm happy that they at least found it 20 minutes later. From what i've read, the longer you wait before getting spontaineous pneumothorax treated the greater your chances of having a collapsed lung again (this has a 40% recurrence rate on average).

 

[dethman]

we just had another kid come in with a collapsed lung yesterday.

 

[mattpegher]

I agree with dethman, 20 min to get to a bed is a miracle, and 45 min until eval is also typical. If you want to complain, contact your congressman and tell him not to cut medicare reimbursement rates (all insurances use this as a guide) the reimbursement has dropped over the last 10 years while cost of living has increased roughly 3%/year. Maybe the cost of test have increased but ER docs and nurses are making less now then they did 10 years ago. So ED's cannot afford the staff or room needed to get everyone in imediately. Triage means the sickest go first and unfortunately or fortunately for you didn't seem sick enough to get to the front of the line.

 

[aidanjm]

wow, scary. glad you are OK. hope there is no chance of reoccurrence.