Posted on 03/19/2009 1:09:05 PM PDT by LottieDah
Tony-winning actress Natasha Richardson was killed by a blunt trauma to the head and her death was ruled an accident, the city Medical Examiner reported Thursday.
Richardson sustained an epidermal hematoma - a blood clot that forms upon impact and starts growing between the brain and the skull - after wiping out Monday on the bunny slope while skiing at a Canadian resort.
"This is a very treatable condition if you're aware of what the problem is and the patient is quickly transferred to a hospital," Dr. Keith Siller of New York University Langone Medical Center said. "But there is very little time to correct this."
Richardson gave no sign that she was seriously hurt until about an hour after she fell and twice turned down offers to take her to a doctor, witnesses said.
It wasn't until Richardson developed a pounding headache that she was rushed to a Montreal hospital.
The ME's finding came as Broadway prepared to dim its light in memory of Richardson.
For one minute starting at 8 p.m., marquees up and down the Great White Way will go dark as a tribute to Richardson, who died on Wednesday.
"The Broadway community is shocked and deeply saddened by the tragic loss of one of our finest young actresses," said Charlotte St. Martin, executive director of The Broadway League.
Meanwhile, plans were being finalized for a family-centered funeral where actor husband Liam Neeson and their two sons can mourn with kin and close friends, sources said.
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
Canada has a shortage of neurosurgeons. They regularly send their emergency neurosurgical cases to the USA for care. The USA is already developing a similar shortage. Socialized medicine in the USA will make emergency neurosurgical care in severe shortage.
http://www.thestar.com/article/254462
Was she a Christian?
What?
It may be that a really good hospital was not close to the ski resort. There was only a small hospital by the resort ... and a trauma center an hour away in Montreal.
By that time, it may have been too late.
Life is precious, sometimes so much so we take it for granted. My son hit the side of his head in a bmx accident. No one saw him hit. He was found wandering around in a daze. I took him to the hospital right away and he had a ct scan which revealed a subdural hematoma. Subdurals are venous blood and are less dangerous, but he still had two surgeries to evacuate it. Epidural are bad because they are arterial bleeds which grow faster.
From this article
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090320/ap_en_ot/obit_natasha_richardson
Yves Coderre, director of operations at the emergency services company that sent paramedics to the Mont Tremblant resort, told The Globe and Mail newspaper that he reviewed the dispatch records and the first 911 call came at 12:43 p.m. Monday.
Coderre said medics arrived at the hill 17 minutes later. But the actress refused medical attention, he said, so ambulance staffers turned and left after spotting a sled taking the still-conscious actress away to the resort’s on-site clinic.
At 3 p.m., a second 911 call was made — this time from Richardson’s luxury hotel room — as her condition deteriorated. An ambulance arrived nine minutes later.
“She was conscious and they could talk to her,” Coderre said. “But she showed instability.”
The medics tended to her for a half-hour before transporting her to a hospital a 40-minute drive away.
On Thursday, the ski resort where Richardson had her fatal fall was subdued, as employees refused to speak about the accident.
Couple of questions. Was she seen and ‘treated’ at the resort’s clinic? If so, did they miss something? Was a CT done?
When the second 911 call went out, and they found unstable, why didn’t the medics get her into the ambulance immediately, instead of waiting 30 minutes, knowing there was a 40 minuted drive involved, when time is of the essence?
They remove a small part of the skull to allow room for the swelling.
Was she going as fast as the guy on the motorcycle?
Out of curiosity, why do you think God needed her, more than her two young sons?
I was wondering the same thing. See #66
I agree, and you just know it was a freak accident. And transferring her to another hospital in an ambulance an hour away? They would have helicoptered her to the big hospital when they picked her up at the lodge, here in the US.
I live over a helicopter flight line that runs to Shands from the west, used all the time.
And you know, Montreal isn't some backwater town with medical facilities using technology out of the '50s. Socialized medicine or not, I have a very hard time believing that Richardson didn't receive outstanding care--particularly because of her celebrity. What kind of hospital wants to be known as the one who accidentally let a well liked, popular actress die?
JMO, this is a tragedy, plain and simple. The result would have been the same if she fell at Kissing Bridge or Sugar Loaf. Prayers for her family and friends
A Christian....a believer.
Montreal's top head trauma doctor said Friday that the lack of medical helicopters in the province of Quebec may have played a role in Richardson's death.
"It's impossible for me to comment specifically about her case, but what I could say is ... driving to Mont Tremblant from the city (Montreal) is a 2 1/2-hour trip, and the closest trauma center is in the city. Our system isn't set up for traumas and doesn't match what's available in other Canadian cities, let alone in the States," said Tarek Razek, director of trauma services for the McGill University Health Centre, which represents six of Montreal's hospitals.
Being driven by ambulance to two separate hospitals, rather than airlifted by helicopter directly to a trauma center, could have cost Richardson crucial moments, he said.
"A helicopter is obviously the fastest way to get from Point A to Point B," he said.
yes.
The other part you snipped, in which the trauma doc states "Our system isn't set up for traumas and doesn't match what's available in other Canadian cities, let alone in the States," does not actually point to what was lacking in this case. Is he talking about the lack of a medicopter? Is he talking about a lack of specialists in small hospitals? Again--we have that here in the US. The reason why my middle sized city (pop roughly 115,000) has a helipad is because NONE of the neighboring counties have facilities equipped to handle specialized trauma. No counties neighboring mine are equipped with decent PICUs, just to name one specialty--when a high-risk pregnant woman approaches her due date around here, she is scheduled at Lansing's Sparrow Hospital or Ingham Regional, not any of the surrounding counties' facilities. My best friend had to drive past her county hospital and proceed 35 miles south to deliver at Sparrow. That's not unusual in Michigan, once you are away from Detroit and its burbs.
I'm absolutley NOT an advocate of socialized medicine. My husband and I never applied for state-sponsored health care for our firstborn, even though we qualified, because we could pay into a private plan. It PINCHED, believe me--but we're against the whole idea of socialized medicine. That's really not the discussion I'm interested in here, though--I'm talking about the specific tragedy of Miss Richardson's death. Obviously, lack of a medical helicopter when time was of the essence didn't help matters any, but matters were already bleak because NR turned down immediate offers of medical attention. And I am very much interested in the town of whatever it's called--Mount Treblanc? I should google it. If it's as small as I am assuming it is, none of what transpired surprises me, and I doubt it would have played out differently in the US.
IIrc, neurosurgery has the highest insurance rates (malpractice). Tough to get someone to go into a profession when the lawyers and insurance companies are going to eat your paycheck.
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