Broken Neck? Take a panadol.

[Thems Fighting Words]

A man who broke his neck in a freak accident was sent home and told to take Panadol after hospital staff failed to diagnose his life-threatening injury. Story here .
It's clear that some injuries are a lot more serious than what would at first appear. As martial artists, we will get injured and we mustn't always adopt the "walk it off" mentality.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Sheesh.

 

[terryl965]

We all make mistakes some bigger than others

 

[Bob Hubbard]

I dunno, I'd call poor, life threatening medical care by incompetents more than a "mistake".

 

[Flea]

In some situations that's an industry standard.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090614/ap_on_go_ot/us_health_care_s_forgotten

CROW AGENCY, Mont. – Ta'Shon Rain Little Light, a happy little girl who loved to dance and dress up in traditional American Indian clothes, had stopped eating and walking. She complained constantly to her mother that her stomach hurt.
When Stephanie Little Light took her daughter to the Indian Health Service clinic in this wind-swept and remote corner of Montana, they told her the 5-year-old was depressed.
Ta'Shon's pain rapidly worsened and she visited the clinic about 10 more times over several months before her lung collapsed and she was airlifted to a children's hospital in Denver. There she was diagnosed with terminal cancer, confirming the suspicions of family members.
"Maybe it would have been treatable," says her great-aunt, Ada White, as she stoically recounts the last few months of Ta'Shon's short life. Stephanie Little Light cries as she recalls how she once forced her daughter to walk when she was in pain because the doctors told her it was all in the little girl's head.
Ta'Shon's story is not unique in the Indian Health Service system, which serves almost 2 million American Indians in 35 states.
On some reservations, the oft-quoted refrain is "don't get sick after June," when the federal dollars run out. It's a sick joke, and a sad one, because it's sometimes true, especially on the poorest reservations where residents cannot afford health insurance.

 

[Bruno@MT]

A sensei I once knew broke his neck in an accident. Because of his strong shoulder / neck muscles, the bone stayed pressed together and it wasn't visible on the Xray.

Sometime later he shook his head because a bee hovering at his nose, his neck made a crackign sound and he thought it was weird so he mentions it at the next checkup. The doctor decides to make another Xray and freaks out because now his neck vertebrae is completely snapped.

They fitted him with a steel frame that was screwed into his shoulders and his head, like a bad monster of frankenstein, and he had to wear it for 6 months.

 

[KickFest]

While I'm sure that most medical staff are at least competent, some doctors and GPs are absolutely worthless. The worst case I've personally known is when my brother went to see his GP about a stomach problem and he was told to go home and pray until it healed .

 

[Stac3y]

About a dozen years ago, I hit a retaining wall on the interstate and flipped my car over. EMS came out and strapped me to a backboard and took me to the ER. I was there for 6 hours and was x-rayed from head to toe. I was released with pain meds and told I had nothing but aches and a bump on the head. 2 days later I was still so foggy from the head injury (and the meds) that I forgot my stepmother's name when I tried to introduce my (now husband) boyfriend to her. Concussion? Ya think?

3 weeks later, when I still couldn't take a deep breath without seeing spots, I went to my regular doc, who x-rayed me again and discovered that I had a fractured sternum. How they managed to miss this when I was in the hospital is a mystery to me, but they did. So I'm thinking misdiagnoses of this kind are probably not rare.

 

[Jade Tigress]

These stories are horrifying. The public generally trusts those in the medical field to be accurate. Between the number of misdiagnosis's and prescription mix ups, the amount of errors is frightening. Patients have to be their own advocates, listen to your gut and don't be afraid to get second opinions.

If you're on meds, check your prescriptions. Make sure it looks the same. If it's new, check the appearance of the pill with the description on the bottle or insert.

 

[arnisador]

Yeah, you have to your own advocate...or at least have one with you, if possible.

 

[JadecloudAlchemist]

Wow I can't believe he did not order an X-ray?! It would have not taken long to perform it either. But how you answer a doctors questions and what words you use will depend on how serious they will take treatment. Saying your neck is sore and saying I am in severe pain are two different cases. I have broken 7 bones and never did I described any of my pain as sore.

http://www.apparelyzed.com/broken-neck.html

Not saying it is the case all the time but usually someone with a bad broken neck is not wandering around driving they are not really able to move but it goes case by case.

And this pretty much sums up the whole thing:

The Carlingford man went to Ryde Hospital late on Friday May 29 after he and a friend cracked their heads during a church youth group activity.

:shrug: