From: sokay@cyclone.mitre.org (Stephen J. Okay)
Subject: Re: wrong health care, and WON'T pay for it
Keywords: malpractice, negligence
Organization: Mitre Corporation, McLean, VA
Distribution: alt
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 14:36:59 GMT

In article <Bt99p0.41o@solbourne.com> kucharsk@solbourne.com (William Kucharski) writes:
>While reading article <4051@novavax.UUCP>, I noticed that
>vaccaro@novavax.UUCP (N. Trafford Vaccaro) said the following:
> >I would urge the snow skiiers(sp?) out there to avoid Winter Park
> >Colorado for a vacation. For a synopsis of why:
> >
> >	1) I go to Winter Park to go skiing
> >	2) I get incredible abdominal pain, can hardly breathe
> >	3) I go to the 7-Mile Clinic, they keep me there all day
> >	4) At 5 pm, they release me, telling me to take pain med.
> >		(FOR ABDOMINAL PAIN of UNKNOWN CAUSES??!?!?!?)
>
>[ ... ]
>
>I would say that although this was a bad experience, the big thing is that
>Winter Park had nothing to do with it.  While the 7-Mile Clinic may have been
>(and may still be) a bunch of incompetent morons, that shouldn't reflect on
>Winter Park and is kind of like saying "don't go to Chicago; I ate at a bad
>restaurant there once."
>
>Winter Park is a great place to ski, and I heartily recommend it (although
>not on the days I'm there. :-) )

I'd agree with both of you for two reasons:
1. I went to Winter Park in March and had an absolutely excellent time skiing,
especially the Mary Jane area. It snowed every day we were there leaving
6-9 inches of that new nasty powder to be attacked and packed down each
morning(bad powder!! bad) :) :)

2. No smileys here: Friday afternoon I wiped out on the lower part of 
Outhouse and my pole came down and cracked my thumb a good one. I went down
to the clinic and pulled out a bleeding digit swollen about 3 times its usual
size. They told me to help myself to the band-aid jar and have a seat since
I didn't have a ski sticking through me or other "serious injury" as the
nursoid on duty put it. I ended up waiting 4 hours before being told to 
leave because they were closing up. I called my HMO back home, got a hold of
somebody at my doc's office and they told me that since I could move it some
that it probably wasn't broken and to wait it out overnight, ice it, and if
it was still the same in the morning go to a hospital and they'd cover it.
The next morning, its down about a size and a half, is stiff, but doesn't
hurt as much. I ease it into my glove and find that I can grip the pole with
no problem.  They're pretty thick, so I can't even bend it to where it hurts
even if I wanted to. I finish the weekend skiing and end up with a neat-o
scar. I go home and have it looked at and it turns out it was just a nasty
bang. 
Okay, so this isn't quite as life threatening as Mr. Vaccaro's tale, but it
really kind of pissed me off that I had to wait so long only to get tossed
out like he did and then only to find out that they wouldn't have looked at
it anyways if I didn't have cash or plastic to wave at them(apparently an HMO
rep's voice on the phone isn't good enough)..

---Steve
-- 
Stephen Okay  sokay@mitre.org
"You see, I'm kind of this control freak who likes to create his own
personal hells before the real one can get to him. I like to beat hell
to hell so to speak".--Spalding Gray "Monster in a box"
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