[grellis]

Just so we kind of keep it on topic--what's your definiton of a medium sized town, and does the town in which Miss Richardson had her accident fall into that category?

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.

[grellis]

So I did some googling. Mont Trebant has a population of 8,892--roughly equal, in size, to St. Johns, Michigan, one of the "larger" towns near Lansing. St Johns is the county seat and is the location of the county hospital, Clinton Memorial. They have a neurology department, but no neurosurgeon on staff. They have MRI services available--four days a week. No weekends.

This IS normal in Michigan--and it's why the level one trauma hospitals in the mitten have helipads. I still don't think it would have mattered in Miss Richardson's case--the hour in which she turned down medical attention was critical. By the time she was complaining of a splitting headache and nausea, the pressure had already built up tremendously, perhaps insurmountably.

Socialized medicine IS a tragedy, thousands of them, every day. This was an entirely different kind of tragedy.