I had a cousin who slipped on some ice while jogging, landed hard on his coccyx, limped home, took a long nap, and died from the blood clot in his coccyx traveling up to his brain.
I don’t know if a visit to an emergency room could have kept him alive, but it would be nice if that is the case.
I end up having this discussion every single time my husband brings up my treatment at the ER after I broke my wrist recently. He insists that “more should have been done.” My fracture was very obviously displaced, and I was crying in pain when I arrived. I was taken ahead of others waiting, immediately put in a sling with an ice pack, got sent to the back very quickly. (I have to say that quietly sobbing while seeping blood from superficial cuts in the ER waiting room tends to upset the other patients, I think.) I was examined carefully, including repeated questions on whether I’d hit my head or had any other injuries; my reporting was checked against my husband’s observations; I was x-rayed and splinted; given a prescription for narcotic painkillers; and sent home with instructions to see an orthopedist asap. From walking in the door to walking out, three hours total. In an ER in a New Orleans suburb three weeks post-Katrina. I don’t know what more my hub thinks could have been done… did he want them to wheel me back for the internal fixation surgery right then? I asked the ortho about it, and he said I had about ten days from the time of the break to get it fixed.
To make a long story short (too late), I strongly agree with you that a lot of dissatisfaction with emergency medical care has to do with civilians misunderstanding what “emergency” care truly is.
It’s possible he could have died of undiagnosed malaria too.
Medical folks, especially ER folks, are trained to think: “When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.”