Frabjous Times

essay

Coda to the second emergency room story

In my last posting on this subject, I fretted some about how long it took for them to take me in. Pamela says that when she was filling out paperwork, she saw that there was a police officer there on account of another patient. Because of HIPAA, the entire story was not something she could piece together from what was said, but she gleaned that a young man had been admitted that same night with some tragic accident involved. There were dozens of people in and out of the waiting area at one time or another on his behalf too. She told me about this the next day when I was a little more lucid — I never picked up that anything much was going on at the time.
This appeared in the local paper yesterday.

Accidental drowning puzzles man's friends

“CLOSTER - A 23-year-old man found at the bottom of a backyard pool during the weekend died by accidental drowning, police said Monday.
Hee Park of Norwood was found by friends around midnight Sunday at 50 Trautwein Crescent, minutes after they had gone indoors to change clothes after a night of swimming, police said.
"They all came out and found him in the pool,'' said Closter police Lt. James Gordon.
Closter Police Officers Thomas Brueck and Matthew Thornhill performed CPR on Park, to no avail, Gordon said.
The borough's ambulance squad then transported Park to Pascack Valley Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 1:37 a.m. …”
So that explains why they had treated my situation somewhat less urgently, by way of triage. Even though the other fellow had already passed on a little earlier than when I arrived, there were the law enforcement and media and community aspects in addition to the regular medical stuff going on, at a time when they didn't have full staff on duty. I feel bad for this man I didn't meet and for all of his friends and family who must be pretty mixed up now. If our places had been switched somehow, I can't say that that would have seemed unfair to me compared to what actually happened that night.
All in all, I know I didn't end up with a bad deal then.
Originally published: 2005/07/13 22:53:14