Kathy Myers Shot Herself to Get Medical Care (VIDEO)

CBS News ^ | June 14, 2010 | Aina Hunter

[Gondring]

Uninsured, Unemployed, and Out of Luck, Mich. Woman, Saw Desperate Step as Only Way to Get Help for Shoulder Injury

(AP/CBS) Uninsured and too broke to pay for medical care to treat her painful shoulder injury, a Niles, Mich., woman shot herself in the same shoulder and went to the E.R. in hopes of obtaining free medical care.

By law, hospitals must treat emergency patients even if they don't have insurance.

Kathy Myers' troubles started when her 80-lb Golden Lab yanked on his leash during a skirmish with her Chihuahuas. The big dog yanked Myer's shoulder as well, injuring her rotator cuff.

After a month of agonizing pain, the unemployed 41-year-old used her in-laws' gun to take matters into her own hands. She placed icepacks and pillows around her head and neck, and then pulled the trigger, according to Wood TV 8 in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Myers says she made a rational choice: she had hoped that the doctors who mended her flesh wound would also fix her rotator cuff.

But her plan didn't work out quite the way she had hoped. Last Thursday doctors treated the bullet wound, but instead of fixing her injured shoulder, they gave her some antiinflammatory drugs and sent her home.

Though shooting yourself to get medical care may seem a bit extreme, Myers told reporters at WSBT-TV in South Bend, Ind., that she has no "suicide wish" and that she "wants to live" despite her problems.

And her problems may only be increasing. Besides being in even greater pain, Myers might have to go before a judge to face a charge of firing a weapon within city limits.

Myers, who recently lost her job with an Indiana hazardous-waste removal company, is one of 1.2 million Michigan residents without health insurance.

[HiTech RedNeck]

So let’s see, now everybody can share equally in this poor lady’s plight. Grand idea.

[Gondring]

So let’s see, now everybody can share equally in this poor lady’s plight. Grand idea.

Forcing you to share the pain of others...it's becoming the new American way.

• Build in a floodplain or on a shoreline? No problem...we'll bail you out.
• Run your company into the ground? No problem...we'll bail you out!
• Get into a mortgage and lifestyle you can't afford? No problem...we'll bail you out!
• .
• .
• .

Defeating them in DC isn't going to help much if they keep changing our culture like this.

[PA Engineer]

Medicaid?

[HiTech RedNeck]

Ah, yes now I see ma’am, the irony.

It used to be that plain old private charity helped deal with difficulties like this. Now it’s Uncle Fixit Sugar to the rescue no matter what the problem. I don’t think this is going to end well.

[Walkingfeather]

Couldnt she have driven to canada (the land of rainbows and unicorns) and gotten some of them free hospitalization?

[Man50D]

And there are still those clueless FReepers who don't understand why so many people feel there was a need for a health care bill.

There are Freepers who are still clueless any federal version of health care is unconstitutional since Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution does not specifically list regulating health care as an enumerated power therefore that is a power reserved to the states or its people per the 10th Amendment.

Some Freepers also don't understand people are not bound to comply with an unconstitutional act or do they realize the three branches operate only at the consent of the governed and that the people have the final say as to how they will be governed.

Unless and until peoples' concerns are understood and addressed, conservatives will appear to be out of touch and lacking compassion.

Those who claim they are Conservative will appear out of touch unless the Constitution is understood and addressed. The lack of both is why we have strayed so far from the Constitution over many decades. There is no compassion in stealing people's Constitutional freedoms and rights in order to advance a socialist/marxist agenda. Let Compassion rest at the state level as required by the Constitution.

[Graybeard58]

It’s just the entitlement mentality takes over their brains and they lose the ability to act in a reasonable manner.

I'm not condoning her behavior in any way, (See my other replies on the matter) but intense pain can make you irrational too.

[VastRWCon]

"troubles started when her 80-lb Golden Lab yanked on his leash during a skirmish with her Chihuahuas"

If she is unemployed, maybe she should get rid of her Lab and Chihuahuas's and buy some health insurance. Owning multiple dogs would be a bit expensive is my guess...

[novemberslady]

I don’t feel sorry for her.

[I Buried My Guns]

I tore mine. The doctor said not to use it for 6 months and it would heal.

I injured mine too, and after 20 years, it still wakes me up at night when I try to roll over.

[Intolerant in NJ]

I'm just suggesting that she probably had the dogs before losing the insurance...and sometimes in life circumstances change and one has to make choices to meet new challenges - like maybe getting rid of at least one of the dogs so she could afford a trip or two to the doctor and not resort to inappropriate and self-defeating actions like shooting herself - besides, someone who loses a job and is without adequate funds should be eligible for programs like Medicaid, although come to think of it Medicaid would probably want her to give up all her dogs before they'd start paying.....

[CaptainK]

I know you have to pay for COBRA. My girlfriend pays it with her unemployment insurance.