Call 911!

I am 71 and had a stroke (which I thought was just vertigo) at the airport upon arriving home from a long air trip. A friend of mine blacked out and fell recently and got badly hurt. Neither one of us called 911, from a sense that it wasn’t important enough; it would be a poor use of public resources, not wanting to be a nuisance, whatever.

As a result, we later got into a conversation about when one should call 911. Better machines in the hospital is one good reason. I had dragged my friend to an Urgent Care clinic a few days after her fall, and they told her she should have called 911. Their reasoning was, that although they had x-ray machines they don’t have CT scanners, MRI machines nor access to a large cadre of medical specialists such as neurologists, so they couldn’t address head injuries very well. Clinics, however up-to-date, can only be expected to have limited diagnostic equipment.

What about cost? Fear of being billed later should not be a deterrent to making that call. Almost always, 911 medical service is part of a local government budget and is therefore already paid for. I said to her “Listen, 911 medic calls are paid for from property taxes, which your landlord has been paying for decades out of your rent. So don’t feel bad about calling 911; you have paid for it already many times over”. Speaking for myself, I’ve made just one 911 call in my 50 year of paying property taxes…..

My physical therapist used to be a volunteer fireman and he made a third point: even if there’s someone else there who might be able to help you, it is still better to call 911 because the people who are going to show up are strong and trained. If you fall at home and your roommate tries to help you up, that could result in more injury to one or both of you!

When we look at national data for 911 medical calls, help with falls is the second largest category, at 20% of all calls in 2014, after the rather vague “sick person”.

So, call 911!