If I only knew

[undergroundpanther]

If I only knew...

I was talking to my friend last night. He used to be an EMT and firefighter.As we shot the shit getting food ready my back seized up bad,So I went on the couch and laid there to control the pain. I already took tylenol, but it wasn't doing anything,So I got the heat pad plugged it in and this is what started this whole conversation..

I told him about the accident I was in in '93 that has fucked my spine up. I was hit while walking across the road slowly with my ex boyfriend , he was taking me out to dinner that night and I was hit by a cab, with no headlights on going 45 mph on a 15 mph road. I was hit as we strolled across unaware there was ANY car coming..I was hit as he stepped on the curb and I was a step behind holding his hand...
My friend being trained in emergency treatment, pointed out how incompetent the Baltimore county emergency treatment personnel were with me that day .And hearing it as he explained it, it blew my mind.

In the accident, I was hit,with no car around me,I was thrown in the air, as I landed my head hit the curb and both my legs were dislocated,the ankles, knees and one hip. I was not knocked unconscious.The car made actual contact with me on my right thigh.I have a distorted thigh now so I am loathe to wear shorts even in those evil 99 degree 90 percent humidity Maryland sweat-bath summers.

I found out ten years later from this orthopedic neurologist I go to now, my neck was fractured in that accident and bleeding but I didn't know it and nobody checked..That is why I got these huge bone spurs in my throat now, bending my esophagus sideways. It seems my spine had a traumatic impact that day that went undetected and untreated. How badly untreated? I was shocked to find out.

My friend said first fuck-up was I should have gone right to shock trauma not to a local ER.


Than I said I was put in a cradle board when they lifted me off the road...onto the gurney thing to haul me into the ambulance..

He said they should have put on a cervical collar on me to stabilize my head, FIRST thing before doing anything else whatsoever...That is standard trauma procedure for all car accident injuries.If the head moves after and accident like that he told me I could have died very easily.I was stunned to realize they could have killed me by not using a cervical collar! The incompetence!! Shit!

Than my friend to drive home his point,he told me about an emergency call he went on ,where a guy was hit and thrown by a car as I was, with similar injuries..And his spine had an impact with curb too. When they got there before they could get the cervical collar on him the guy slightly moved his head to look twords them,then a bone fragment inside his neck severed the main nerve in his spine and he died instantly. My friend found out via the coroner's report what happened to him as he was upset about it.

I had no clue how delicate my situation that day could have been.And scary as it is the Baltimore County emergency crew were ignorant of that too.And that is really scary to me.


When I was in the ambulance .They cut off my pants, but they did not do anything about setting my dislocated legs. I had to tell the stupid ass lady riding with me, who was asking me my name and address over and over,to get me some pillows I saw on the wall in the ambulance and where to place them,so the muscles in my dislocated legs would quit pulling against each other and worsening the dislocations.

I rode to the hospital, 20 minutes or so with pillows propping my dislocated legs. The cradle board stabilized my head very little in the bouncy ambulance.I am able to trance out to deal with pain, I learned this from growing up an abused kid, sometimes dissociation IS useful as a coping mechanism....Anyways, She kept asking my address thinking I was in shock,

My friend said.. if she KNEW her procedures for emergency care she would have taken my temperature, taken my pulse/ blood pressure and shined a light into my eyes to see what my pupils did,and felt for cold clammy skin looked for grey gums.

She did none of this because she was incredibly INCOMPETENT.

My friend said how bad they had fucked my legs up.

My legs should have be reset and splinted asap and EMT's should know how to set dislocations and splint legs. He said they should have done this after they had the cervical collar on me and after I was strapped in the cradle board before I was transported. He said my legs should have been reset and stabilized with splints before the bumpy ride that further messed up the tendons and joints and risked bone breaks...My blood pressure and all stats should have been done CONSTANTLY, if they thought I was in danger of shock and I should if I was showing signs of shock been treated for it not asked my damn address over and over.

By this point he was really pissed looked upset he hugged me and said how he wished he was there. I thought I was gonna cry on the spot.


He asked what happened after that.. So I continued .
When I got to GBMC , to my amazement NO X-rays were taken . None of my legs, or my spine. The doctor he did reset my legs, without knowing if bones were broke or not,and when he pulled them I shrieked and asked for pain medicine. He gave me no warning he just grabbed my leg yanked.I called him a goddamn horse doctor for that..He and I both didn't know I had big hemotomas and bone bruises in my leg already and the tendons were fucked from the ride and the pulling as the pillows were not enough stabilization. The ER nurse gave me whopping dose of morphine than the doc.reset it. I was not asked what meds I was on or anything. I was taking major tranquilizers, psych meds. I overheard one nurse asking how much morphine did she give me, and another nurse say you could have killed her I hoped they were not talking about me.. I started drifting....They wrapped one leg in a splint with an ace bandage thing.My other leg was not splinted but it was reset ,wrapped in an ace bandage.That's all they did.

Then the cop came to see me,I was still drugged into a stupor.He was talking but I didn't understand him because my mind wasn't alert enough to.. Nobody else was in there with me as my boyfriend was not allowed in the ER area. I had no support, no voice and no advocate.I did not know what "press charges" meant in that state of mind.He wanted me to sign a paper. I had signed several papers, already and I had no clue what they were..Basically I was unaware and I was defenseless. I told him , No,to his question because I was not sure of anything,I just heard, I thought he asked something else and I don't trust cops in general...

No charges were pressed,because I said no in a confused state of mind. I didn't even have a chance to organize my own thoughts.Isn't that kind of manipulation bullshit that cop did just peachy? So the Jimmy's CAB company which is a big company in Balto County, and the idiot driver who hit me faced NO penalties, because I did not understand what was going on at all.Very convenient for the cab company that the cop went to see me in THAT state of mind.Just another way poor people with no advocates, in serious situations are fucked over because they don't know,have no advocates, and no voice..Do you think this kind of shit would have been pulled on a RICH person? A political person? Hell no.Fucking privileged bastards.I Hate 'em.


Later, that night after the morphine was letting up,I was hastily instructed how to use crutches and I couldn't get the hang of it.I found out just standing up hurt not just my legs but my back,I tried to say something, but nobody listened to me,my words were all slurry and it was very hard to talk.They didn't care. Regardless of everything I had to go,and they sent me home.

I rode in a van home holding my head up despite the pain.I would have given anything for a pillow.Dulaney staff were assholes , they forced me up out of bed the next morning at 7 am.. and two days later I was forced to go to day program, despite taking tylenol 3 and I was still in incredible pain. My ex boyfriend I had back than had to help me with everything, showering, food, get dressed, everything. I couldn't walk and it took me awhile to get used to crutches.The staff hired by the state to help didn't do squat to help me.They would just yak on the phone and watch TV,eat, drink coffee and sit around or sleep they did not do their job at all. These people acted like I just got bumped and should get over it already.But my ex did help me.And despite all the bad times we had and the breakup.. I still am thankful for his help back than,when I really needed it.Without him, I would have not been able to eat, shower, dress ..nothing..His help with learning crutches was very appreciated.
Because I did as the assholes and incompetents told me to do and toughed it out and did things too fast, and lumped the pain, and ignored my body and my own condition and needs I have a really fucked up spine now.
Now my body is my new prison.It's falling apart it hurts alot, and I am so pissed. I feel so cheated.Let down, Cheated by the incompetents,by 'the system' by people that should have done their job,by the world, by my own ignorance and by the willful ignorance and apathy of others.I am so sad, angry, frustrated and I just wish like hell I knew what I know now THAN.

I am pissed at Baltimore county, at the laws always written to favor the corporations, the criminal,the bully,the rich, the'beautiful people'first. And if it isn't written that way, in real life it ends up that way.. I learned last night from my friend the EMT how Baltimore County has corrupted it's hiring practices in the name of political correctness.I always assumed affirmative action was a good thing. Now I am not so sure.

Apparently Baltimore County politics has enabled the state to fudge EMT test scores, all to favor minorities for hiring, this way of doing things makes it so ambulance companies, hospitals and the state must favor and hire people that do not know the material or proper procedures in emergency care over people that do, based in the notion of helping minorities. They give tests and training to all EMT's. Not all people in class really pass the EMT tests and training even if the papers say they did. The standards are lowered.

We need better EMT's one way to do that is to not fudge test scores..I wonder in the case of the woman in the ambulance with me if she got her test score prettied up to be hired? Her incompetence showed how badly she failed to follow basic EMT procedures looking back with someone who DOES know his shit.. Apparently,a woman gets a 30% freebie score that she did not earn on her test scores to make her more eligible for a job . What's not taken into account here is she might not be able to do that job in reality. This is not fair to the woman looking to be hired in some respects. Definitely it's not fair to any injured people she attempts to help..These extra unearned 30% points tacked on to her test score of 70% makes her pass,at 100% and because she is female she is preferred hire, so she'd be hired over a white guy who had a test score of 100% and knew his shit. .What burns me is she'd be hired as if she got 100% on her test when she only got a 70% because she's a woman.And the scores are adjusted even more for racial minorities.It wouldn't be a big deal to have the hiring preferences skewed that way if it wasn't a life or death job in question here.

Emergency care is one field I think where affirmative action should NOT be allowed to influence who gets hired. Hiring SHOULD be on the basis of people that know their shit, who pass the tests, did the training..and know what to do and that's all you need to consider in the hiring process. But because of fucking bigots, misogynists and racist pieces of shit,it is fucked it all up for everyone.And the idiotic way the state did the compensation for minorities to counteract the bigoted ass-wipes FUCKED everything up again in another way.Aaargh.

I wonder if the incompetent woman who was with me in the ambulance that day was one of the women who was cut slack to cover for her crappy EMT test scores? Looks that way to me.And I am pissed.

Lowering standards in some cases really is DANGEROUS..I am ok with affirmative action in other careers that are not life and death serious.I know bigots and assholes have shut out minorities from jobs too much in the past so the STATE had to intervene.That is just sick,that the STATE had to make these bullies be fair. But lowering standards for political correctness in EMT and emergency care is inexcusable and I think the state fucked us all over with that shit.

Because he people doing these emergency care jobs HAVE to know what they are doing and MUST know the procedures or they'll hurt someone, like they hurt me... Because of their lying test scores that excuses their incompetence, That incompetence of what they never had to learn that fucked me over!!!

I got pain now for the rest of my days. I didn't know how to handle my life all that well back injury or no back injury..because in the psych system it was not that good either at hiring competent people or helping people,all they focused on was making me be "appropriate" or making sure I did what they told me to.

Dulaney staff were a bunch of incompetents, most of them, did not help me really. They didn't listen and they really didn't give a shit about the clients well being as long as the staff got paid, nobody killed them self, or busted shit up, and nobody snitched on staff when they took state van to go to parties and came back on the job wasted and didn't know someone was suicidal and overdosed until a client told them.. You would not believe the immature bullshit and incompetence and sheer psychopathy I saw out of the staff in the residential housing programs.Holy Shit..

The day programs were supposed to help psych patients learn to live in real life,better. These PRP's failed to do that because if clients got better they would not have as much state funds pouring in to the program which staff siphoned off generously for themselves with clever accounting and sometimes outright embezzlement.Because the state tallied grants based in numbers of clients and other stupid criteria that made sure NOBODY got better.

These programs were not about helping they were about warehousing and controlling and sneaking perks. These programs failing to teach me skills of real life fucked me over..lIt was just like being unaware and ignorant of what"press charges" means..or my rights to a lawyer or how to have an advocate,or anything else really important like managing bills , how to build a social life from scratch,learning to drive etc.
They fucked over ALOT of vulnerable confused people royally and it just galls me.. This program I was in when I was in the accident just dumped me out into section 8 later with no real life skills to handle a totally different life on the outside.It was a nightmare learning to do bills to budget how to write a goddamn check. So what did I do I hooked up with a assholes,because they knew how and were willing to teach they said,and because I was unaware of the dynamics of abusive relationships. This is stuff they don't teach psych clients about that the the psych system really needs to teach,I think it's because half the staff are abusive people themselves. I am sooo Pissed.

Here's the kicker, If through so many of those times I had appropriate representation and advocacy at the time of my accident, during my stays at different programs, I would not be in this situation I'm in now.

Regarding what happened during the accident,If I had competent advocacy, I would have had a lawsuit against the ambulance company for their many failures to follow basic trauma procedures,the state, the cab company,for going 45 mph in a 15 mph road with no lights on in the evening, the hospital for not X -raying my back or legs in a trauma case,not treating me as I needed to be,and a suit against my residential program for many things abuse fraud..and being a bunch of assholes making me get up and go to program and walk my ass a half mile on crutches to get to physical therapy because they don't wanna get off their asses and drive me there in a van..

With the settlement I could have had,because Even if I called it 3 fucking years later, I'd maybe be living off as much as or more than 2,000 bucks a month and all of my injuries forever would be tended to. I would not be alone and fucking poor like I am now.I would not have these cysts in my thigh that make my leg go numb from the impact,driving me nuts that led to that fiasco I had over blue cross whining that it was cosmetic and would not pay,so I never got them out. That would not have been an issue.If I had a proper advocate my back would have had physical therapy along with my legs. Maybe the pain and disability I have now would have been lessened and I definitely would be able to afford to live. My trans-gender surgery would have BEEN done.

But here I am 10 years later just now learning about the stuff I wish I knew ten, 15, 20 years ago.

The anger I feel right now about my situation being taken advantage of, the poverty, the fucking state, politics,pain all of it.. is incredible..

Goddammit.
Glad DU is here at least I can vent so my head does not explode.

I really hate the predatory controls of this world that evil which makes it so treacherous, unjust , unfair, and wrong..

[porphyrian]

1. We must not tolerate victimization. - n/t

[undergroundpanther]

2. What do you mean by that?

Are you talking about here?

Are you talking about the get over it mantra as in this "victim culture" shit republicans spout as if they KNEW? or CARED?? Because that hate of victimized people is blame the victim and some people want people who are screwed over, hurting or abused to shut up and disappear.


Or are you saying that the bullies,predatory people, profit pigs,manipulators,the political favoritism and all the other sickening stuff that is done to protect the powerful, the rich, the incompetent that hurts the poor, the little guys, the powerless people when they are un informed or unaware and have no one there..is what must stop.

Please clarify what you meant.Because I have heard "get over it" from people that never went through this sort of thing themselves,as far as I can tell,more times than I can count.And it makes me furious when people want to force denial..

[porphyrian]

3. "We must not tolerate the victimization of others," was what I meant.

Sorry to raise your hackles, but I was abbreviating since I'm trying to do too many things at once.
;)

[Sugar Smack]

4. I read every word of your sad, tragic nightmare.

I really, really feel for you. You moved me beyond words with your story and it makes me so angry that you had to go through all of that. You just gave a life to the facts that we would have maybe read without knowledge of a personal experience.

:hug: I am always wishing you the best, undergroundpanther.