Tuesday Afternoon in Germany: A Visit to the ER via Ambulance

So, Cheyenne was hit by a car on Tuesday.

She is going to be OK.  Nothing is broken.  She is a giant bruise, and everything is very sore, but she will be fine.  Although she was thrown through the air, she somehow landed without hitting her head.  She will be OK.

Lots of people stopped to help her, and the woman that hit her stayed at the scene until the police arrived.  Cheyenne had the presence of mind to call Dirk, and he rushed to the hospital to meet her.

I have never felt so helpless in my life.  Stuck at home while my daughter was in the ER.

I have been a mom for 23 years, and a Registered Nurse for 17 years. Most of those years working as an ER nurse.  Yet, here I was, stuck at home, waiting for news of my daughter after this accident.  It was torture.

Once she was home, and she made it clear she was OK, I grilled her about her care at the scene and the hospital.  Were the proper Xrays done, was she immobilized?  What medicines were used?

Well, I must admit her answers really shocked me.  Her descriptions of the German hospital care care was VERY different from care that I have given for years in US hospitals.

It sounds like she had amazing, and skilled Paramedics caring for her at the scene.  On a normal day, Cheyenne is able to speak German very well.  After getting hit by the car, not so much.  The medics quickly switched to English to speak with her, making her feel much safer.  After evaluation, they deemed she did not need spinal immobilization, but needed to be further evaluated in a hospital setting.  So, off to the hospital she went via ambulance.  They continued to palpate her neck and spine to continue to evaluate for any pain or tenderness.

Once she arrived to the hospital, everything I know about treating trauma went out the window.  She was brought to a room and a doctor came in briefly.  He determined that she would need some xrays (Obviously) and then had her walk to the waiting room to wait for said xrays. Wait, what?? I about lost my mind at that part of the story.  She was not bumped by a car, she didn’t trip and fall down.  She was hit by a car and sent flying into the air!  This is considered a trauma in every hospital that I have ever worked.  Yet, before having her cleared via xray, she was asked to walk, carrying her backpack and purse to the waiting room. (She was complaining of low back pain, right ankle pain, lower leg pain, and hip pain).

Long story short, no urine sample was obtained (She had low back pain which could indicate kidney injury), They did xrays of her ankle/leg and her ribs/chest.  No films were done of her hips/pelvis or low back.  She was sent home with a few tabs of Motrin 600mg and instructed to follow up with an orthopedist the next day.

I know that in the States we tend to over xray, and do too many studies just to be on the safe side.  Or, more specifically, cover ourselves from lawsuits if something is missed.  But, that is how I was trained.  So, this way of evaluating someone is SO alien to me.  It feels so risky, so minimal, something big could be missed so easily.

But it wasn’t, she is OK.

She had further xrays done at her follow up.  Her hips and pelvis were xrayed.  Everything came back clear.

I still do not know how I feel about the whole German hospital experience.  It’s just SO vastly different from everything I have know to be correct.

Things happen in a blink of an eye.  A woman drives over a crosswalk, and sends your kid flying.

Yet, she is going to be OK.

Not sure when I will be.

If you are living abroad, or far away from family, how have you dealt with emergencies?  What have you done when you have no family nearby to help, or sit with you?  How have you handled the language barriers?