Have you ever had to be transported to a hospital in an ambulance due to an injury or complication?

Yes. With a head injury after being mugged for a pack of cigarettes. (and only the cigarettes, they left my wallet, watch, phone etc). I took it as a sign smoking was bad for health and quit.

Yes. I thought I was having a heart-attack. Once at the hospital, they thought it was a hole in my lung. After a few days of tests, they determined it was stress.

I resigned from my job shortly thereafter.

Yes. I tore my esophagus, but they thought it was a heart attack.

Kidney stones, the pain was so bad I couldn’t move.

Whee!! ride in Flashwagen!!!

When I was 16, I was the front seat passenger in a car that hit a telephone pole. The idiot driving must have been doing at least 50 mph. I went by ambulance to the local hospital.

I was fine, but I had a huge bruise over my torso where the seatbelt had been. I’m sure it saved my life.

Twice, both relating to auto accidents. I went to hospital only because the EMTswanted me to sign a waiver if I refused to be checked out medically. So I was checked out and sent home (by taxi) since I had no vehicle.

When I flipped a car on black ice, I ended up hanging from the floor by the seatbelt. That was so uncomfortable that I unclipped it and fell onto the inside of the roof.

I too had a giant bruise caused by the seatbelt buckle and an abraised cornea due to airbag knocking my glasses off.

@gailcalled Ouch.

And the ambulance was a refitted bread truck, which I enjoyed.

Yes twice; the first time was after a head on collision on a highway overpass. The woman who crossed the center line and hit me was drunk (at 11:00 AM). My infant and I got the worst of that, thank goodness he was in the back seat in his car seat and he was not terribly injured.
The second time was a few years later, to be transferred to a larger hospital for emergency spinal surgery.

It wasn’t for me, but for my son. I was more scared than he was. Luckily he had been a HUGE fan of “Emergency” an old TV show that was about the Fire Dept. Paramedics. He forgot all about his pain because he was so excited about getting to ride in an ambulance.

The only times I’ve had to go to the emergency room, I’ve taken cabs. Eventually I realized that was a bad idea because they see ambulance patients before walkins. On one occasion I had a burst gall bladder (like an appendix only worse). It was a busy Friday night so they were seeing a lot of bloody fights arriving via ambulance while I was sitting in the waiting room. The only others in the waiting room were a drunk skateboarder and his girfriend who was trying to get him stitched up. Eventually he fell asleep and she noticed I was unconscious and raised an alarm. I was in surgery in minutes after sitting in the waiting room for 3 hours.

The only times I have been in ambulances was in being transported from one medical to another when there was no “emergency”

I was medevaced by helicopter after getting hit in the Gulf War. I didn’t get to enjoy the ride since I was unconscious. Woke up on a Navy hospital ship two days later.

I have never ridden in an ambulance, but my husband has several times. They do tend to see ambulance patients more quickly than walk-ins, but as he has developed more and more health problems it seems to take less and less time before we are seen.

The longest we ever spent in an emergency room was 11 hours. It was shortly after Katrina and Rita so the hospitals were incredibly full of patients from Louisiana and Mississippi (we are in Texas) and we waited that long for him to get a bed upstairs.

Most recently we went to the emergency room and got seen within 30 minutes. This was in large part because I have learned how to talk to triage nurses. To a lesser degree it was because my husband looked sick, which, when used by an ER worker, means “this guy is not going to be sent home. He needs to go into the hospital so let’s go ahead and start an IV now in case he codes.”

Oddly enough, when his gall bladder burst we went to the ER twice and they kept sending him home, but with an appointment to be assessed for surgery. Fortunately he went into a coma while we were waiting in that doctor’s office, which was in the hospital that has the trauma center. The nurses got to wheel him from the doctor’s office straight to ICU – they were thrilled because they never get to do that. He remained in a coma for three weeks but he pulled through.

There are code words that let the ER staff know who needs to be seen ASAP, and we apparently are using them now.

Thank you for your service @stranger_in_a_strange_land

People are sometimes amazed when I mention I’ve endured the pain of Kidney Stones.

I tell them I know it’s nothing compared to what some others have gone through.

Your case seems like a good example of such.

Lurve.

No, but they did it anyway.

No I haven’t. Am I missing out on something?

No, I haven’t, thankfully. I have been to the ER once, when I was 5. But other than that, I haven’t. No one in my immediate family has (at least while I’ve been alive) and I’m the only one who’s ever been to the ER. Interesting. :)