Posted on 07/09/2007 8:58:19 AM PDT by WestTexasWend
-After county won't test victim's blood for viruses, good samaritan left wondering if she was infected-
When Wendy Lee saw a man get hit by a truck that night in May, she had no second thoughts about what she should do.
Lee stopped her Suburban to help 64-year-old Juan Vega, who had been trying to cross Williamson County Road 172 near La Frontera in Round Rock when he was struck by a 2000 Chevrolet pickup. Lee said she could see Vega's cowboy boots lying in the road.
"I called 911 as I was walking up to him, and they walked me through the first steps of CPR and chest compressions," Lee said.
Vega's eyes were open and moving, and he was gasping for air as she put her lips to his and breathed.
The next moment, she was spitting his blood into the grass.
Vega died on the way to Brackenridge Hospital in Austin. When emergency workers saw that Lee, 38, was covered in Vega's blood, they sent her to the hospital to be tested for HIV and hepatitis.
The tests came back negative, but because Williamson County didn't test Vega for those diseases at the scene, Lee is left wondering whether she was exposed to viruses that might affect her health later. Doctors say that six to eight weeks after exposure is the most important time to test for HIV and hepatitis because both viruses take time to show up, but Lee said she cannot afford to get retested.
And more than a month later, she's stuck with almost $3,000 in medical bills.
"When I opened that bill, I wanted to cry," said Lee, a single mother of two teenagers who is a human resource manager at Triple Crown Dog Academy in Hutto. "I kept thinking to myself, 'Didn't I do the right thing?' "
Eric Strelnieks, a staff physician at St. David's Round Rock Medical Center, where Lee was taken after she tried to help Vega, said she was given a shot to prevent hepatitis B, a virus that attacks the liver, and was prescribed medication that slows the development of HIV.
Lee said she stopped taking the medication after a few weeks because it made her nauseated and dizzy.
Lee's health insurance paid a portion of her hospital bill, which was just under $8,000. But she said she can't afford to pay the remainder.
"The way life is right now, $50 is too much to pay," she said.
Testing Vega's blood for diseases could have put the questions to rest, but Williamson County doesn't require such tests unless it is suspected that alcohol or drugs were involved in a fatal accident, said Steve Benton, the justice of the peace who was called to the May 15 wreck.
The driver, an 18-year-old Round Rock man, was not charged.
"I sympathize with (Lee), but if we did a toxicology and blood test every time a fatality occurred, then it would cost the county $2,000 for each test," Benton said. Lee said she asked for Vega's medical records but was told by a state trooper after the accident that they were not available to her because of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, a law that prevents patient medical records from being made public.
That might not be the case, said health law attorney Leah Stuart with the law firm Vinson & Elkins. She said Lee would have to make an open records request to any hospital or physician that Vega may have visited, and the health provider would then decide whether to release the information.
"It's a catch-all exception in the (HIPAA) law that pertains to someone whose life has been threatened. Hers could be in this case," Stuart said. "For (Lee) to get those records is a big hurdle."
Lee said that between work and caring for her children, she doesn't have time to deal with paperwork or open records requests.
Socorro Vega, Juan Vega's daughter, met with Lee last month and told her that her father was not sick. But she did not know the last time he had been tested for communicable diseases.
"She was an angel for my dad that moment she stopped. She really just wanted to save his life," Socorro Vega said. "I just hope that she gets help to pay the bills or gets the help she deserves for her good deed."
According to hospital officials in Round Rock and Austin, emergency technicians and first responders who are exposed to patients' blood receive the same testing and medication that Lee received, but their employers' insurance covers the cost.
Lee said she helped Vega because she and others had failed to help the victim of a car accident in front of her Round Rock home this year. She said she later learned that the man lying in the middle of the road had died, and she vowed to help the next person in need.
"I could never regret what I did (for Vega) because I know it was right," she said. "I just wish someone could tell me what to do."
Please don’t post that again.
“screw that...I drive by all accident scenes”
Given the state of things with frivolous lawsuits, HIV, and everything else it is good advice Karl. Unless it is an immediate family member I am not assisting unless I am wearing a friggin’ space suit at the time and can assist while using a ten foot pole to do so.
’ “She was an angel for my dad that moment she stopped. She really just wanted to save his life,” Socorro Vega said. “I just hope that she gets help to pay the bills or gets the help she deserves for her good deed.” ‘
Uh, hellooooo?? You are the “help” she needs to pay the bills. Put your money where your mouth is. It was your father she was trying to save.
>Please don’t post that again.<
I won’t.
If you need financial assistance be sure not to ping me.
Good God woman, take a midol or stfu! What is with you wishing death or illness on these folks?
I think I could and would rescue anyone from just about anything, but the mouth to mouth thing is beyond me. I just don’t know. I think I could run into a burning building to drag someone out first.
They wouldn’t understand the implications of what they were saying unless it involved them. I’m trying to put them in stricken people’s shoes, they lack basic empathy for understanding what it must be like to be down and helpless, whether one is a victim or one is a good samaritan. I have to use such examples to make them think it out, they wouldn’t be able to understand otherwise. They don’t understand human nature and the inherent incentives it contains. There shouldn’t be a bigger incentive to walk over a dying person than there should be to try to help them, no matter how educated or uneducated they are. The negative incentives in the system now, which provide positive incentives to just walk away, are a bad thing, and placing them in the shoes of the victim is the only possible way to help them understand. They can’t do it on their own, they don’t have that kind of human empathy.
No, that’s not what I am saying at all.
No one should be stuck with a $3000 bill for attempting to render help. The situation as it stands is that someone should be stuck with that bill. I am against that. If we allow the situation as it is to remain in place, everyone will have a human incentive to walk away from the distressed without rendering aid. Who would want to face financial ruin just to help one’s fellow man? When the alternative would be to not face financial ruin? Yes, the state should pay for cases like this woman’s, to get rid of the incentives built in to make people walk away. I am not in favor of welfare in 99.99% of cases, but in this case, yes, I think the state should pick up the tab. No one should be fearful of financial ruin for attempting to help someone in good faith, just as no doctor or other good samaritan should fear a lawsuit for attempting to heroically save someone in distress. It should always be less costly to try to help someone. Raising the cost of helping someone always ensures that there will be a lot less of it. Human nature.
$3000 bucks sounds like it’s nothing to you, but how would you feel if the tests you had to pay for were $300,000? Or $3,000,000? The point is, even though $3000 is no hardship to some, to others it is. That’s what good samaritan funds ought to be out there for, public or private, to reduce the natural - and reasonable - incentive to walk away if one didn’t have a spare and handy $3000 bucks lying around to pay for medical tests.
I've never seen this type before but do a search on medical supplies and uniforms and several companies show up.
I understand your point, but $3000 when compared with the risks this woman took to her health is really small potatoes. It would be nice if somebody picked up the tab, here. But I don’t think it is a grave injustice if somebody does not.
Check your mail. Thank you
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
The woman should NOT have been told nor should she have gone to the ER for BLOOD TESTS. They cost in any ER is very high. Those tests probably would cost 250.00 if that at my clinic. Dumb.
AIDS and hep tests are free.
Most first aid kits include a “barrier” for rescue breathing. I’m sure if you searched you could find a clinic willing to provide one for free. Just keep it in your car for when it’s needed.
I would prefer that people who help others in extraordinary circumstances not have to worry about big financial losses. That goes for doctors who rescue people and complications happen and then they find themselves sued for their efforts, and that goes for this lady who tried to help this victim in the street. I don’t think anyone should have to think twice about helping others. A $3000 might make some think twice and walk on by. These cases by the way are so rare that it wouldn’t hurt the state to take on verifiable cases like hers and pick up the tab - she says $50 extra a month is crushing, taking away all discretionary money from her budget and all the enjoyment of life for probably the rest of her life. This is a high cost she shouldn’t have to pay, just for trying to help someone else. If private charity does not step in quickly to pay this for her, the state should. Yank it from some welfare queen or out of some drunk driver’s fine and all would be even. In fact, raise the drunk driving fines to pay for cases like hers, and all would be even.
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