Posted on 03/22/2009 8:24:21 AM PDT by Nachum
One and I bet you choose yes.
The Canadian health system did not kill Natasha Richardson, but it sure didn’t help.
Quebec does not have medivac helicopters, presumably because the Province of Quebec choose to spend their health dollars elsewhere. Unfortunately Canadian law prohibits a private entity from offering a service like that.
In the US a private helicopter would have gotten to her quicker, but since she refused initial treatment,and due to the nature of her injury, it might have been to late anyway.
But as I said, not having a helicopter available did not help the situation.
Did I? I don’t remember that! I must be a somnambulist!
I loved flying down the mountain feeling the wind and free from a helmet while snowboarding. I bought into the culture that snowboarders “ride” and we don't wait for anyone and were more cool than “planker”(skiers). I wore goggles to protect my eyes and improve vision. I wore outfits that didn't match, looking more like street clothes. I even wore goofy caps to signify being part of a fraternity that was unique.
One day, in an attempt to keep up with my friends, I jumped over the cliff of a bowl, in a attempt to get ahead of them and finish to the bottom of the hill before them. I landed fine but twenty feet later caught an edge on some ice and tumble head over head.
When I landed, it was on my front and felt the air leave my lungs. Worse, I suddenly had a massive headache and it felt as if my head had come off my shoulders. It hurt all around the collar line and all the way up. I mean like my I my head had been severed.
I couldn't move, from the pain and laid there for probably five minutes. As I began to get up the pain just increased. I slowly raised myself to my hands and knees and had to several time just lay my head in the snow, still on my hands and knees. I could not believe the pain.
I was off trail, out of breath and there was no one coming anytime soon. I knew that.
I reached deep inside and was able to get to my feet. Standing there I contemplated riding to the bottom of the hill or walking. I was good enough, I thought to myself, to ride and it would be faster. I would go to the first aid station and see what damage had been done.
Arriving at lodge I found the first aid station and explained what happened and how felt. They checked my out and determined that I had given myself a concussion and recommended taking it easy for a few days, no drinking and get down off the mountain to sea when I could. You see that altitude increases the damage caused by head trauma or bleeding.
It was Sunday and we leaving in few anyway. I packed up my gear and waited for my friends.
The next day, I was home and went to my doctor. He confirmed the concussion and then Xray my ribs, as I still having pain when breathing.
The doctor said I had two cracked ribs in addition to the concussion and recommended no snow boarding for 4 weeks. I said something like “Well, they aren't broken and I feel fine so long as I am moving I will be careful. That prognosis wasn't going to keep me, “a rider”, from cruising down the mountain. I told I would stay on trail and go easy.
He then said that a helmet would be a good idea, for all the reasons we have heard before. I agreed and went to REI and picked one up.
That was 7 years ago and since then I have fallen on my head, run into trees and been hit in the head, by skis or boards, from other skiers or snowboarders as they were falling.
I have 8 helmets now and always ride them. I take a spare and very strongly encourage anyone going with me to wear one of my spare if they do not have one.
I tell them you only have one head and it is pretty important to protect it. They don't do transplants like your kidneys and you can live with one kidney.
I have helped a few people ice their heads after falling. I keep spare plastic bags in backpack and scoop the snow into the bags. I have seen people with hemotomas the size of a chalk board erasure.
None of these people wore helmets and many were on beginner slopes.
Your brain can bleed slowly or quickly depending on where you were hit and how hard.
Sometimes things just happen beyond your control. You may have fallen and think everything is fine and then suddenly you have a massive headache and an internal hematoma. Medical care is a personal decision and you have to aggressively seek it out. Ms. Richardson did not have someone from ski patrol following her around nor someone from the medical community.
Even then, many headaches are Mountain Sickness that is brought from high altitude. There may have even a discussion about that and they may have administered oxygen and water to east the symptoms.
Sometimes life and death just happens.
If you snowboard or ski, wear a helmet, even if you are a beginner. You will be safer and you feel more confident knowing you have some protection on your head.
Someone posted the results of a study on helmet vs. no helmet on another thread. The conclusion was that if the accident was severe, you were going to die.
If you didn’t have a helmet you were going to die of direct brain injury. If you did have a helmet on you were going to die of some other indirect cause. A helmet would allow you to die in a more confident manner though.
They took her out Canada to get her closer to her family so they could be with her when she died.
She was brain dead and not coming back to life. The family knew they would have to remove the life support and she would pass but they would be there when passed from this life to the next.
Thanks. I would like to hear from more of the medical community on this.
Thanks. I would like to hear from more of the medical community on this.
If you think helmets are uncool, check out a “Bad Lieutenant”. I doubt that there is is a freeper that would mind wearing one.
No. She’s with Elvis.
No it doesn't . Ambulance services are not necessarily owed by a provincial government , hospital or municipality . Many are contracted out to private companies. There is a private helicopter ambulance service in Quebec . The province has fix wing ambulances , one a Challenger jet , for long distance.
But Diana died in Paris, not England.
I stand corrected. My understanding was that most, if not all private health care was either prohibited or severely restricted in Canada. I assumed that this included ambulances, helicopters and the link. I was wrong.
It really depends on when she died. If it took 2.5 hours to get her to the hospital after she felt the first symptoms (headache) and she was alive when she arrived at the hospital then it is quite likely a helicopter ride of 15 or 20 minutes to an emergency room would have saved her life. If she died in the ambulance shortly after beginning the trip it may have been too late anyway.
bttt
I find it very hard to believe that there was no helicopter available in all of Quebec..Most major centers in Canada (if not all) have helo transport available for serious accidents.. In Toronto,they fly above my head all day long.
Canada has been a world leader in neuro science since the 1930’s, and many, many world class facilities that she could have been brought to.
Socialized medicine is a mode of healthcare delivery that tries to be very egalitarian, it does not mean its delivery reminds you of Eastern Europe in 1956..
Gosh,last i heard, we may even be getting our first case of insulin soon..
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