Sep 28 2007

Abandoned in CT Scan for Hours

Published by Joana at 3:44 pm under Ethics, Health Concerns
Tagged: ,

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Do you ever get the feeling that your doctor and physicians don’t care about you or see you as merely another source of income and nothing more? Have you ever felt forgotten or mistreated by them? Well rest assured, your fears are probably legitimate.

What, you thought I was going to be reassuring you that they do care? Pft! Check this out:

A cancer patient says she was left alone in a CT scanner for hours after a technician apparently forget about her, and she finally crawled out of the device, only to find herself locked in the closed clinic.

A technician placed her inside the large machine at about 4 p.m. on Sept. 19, dimmed the lights so she could relax and told her not to move during the 25-minute procedure.

“At some point, my mom lost track of time and felt like too much time had passed, but she couldn’t look at a clock or anything because it was dark,” her son Ariel Tellez said.

After calling out, then screaming for help, she said, she spent several hours trying to free herself from the machine. Finally, she wiggled out from under a heavy blanket and out of the machine. By the time deputies found her, it had been five hours since she was placed inside.

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You’ve got to love the fact that the office that this happened at is now going to institute a lockup procedure, whereby all employees will have a checklist of things to check on and secure before leaving to insure a full sweep of the premises is conducted in order to prevent another occurrence.

Hey that sounds like an excellent idea!

But wait, if gas stations, business offices, and what not already check to make sure everyone is gone and things tidying up before closing for the evening then why wasn’t a medical practice doing the same?

3 Responses to “Abandoned in CT Scan for Hours”

  1. todd harrison on 01 Oct 2007 at 1:22 am

    I don’t doubt that this happened. what i can’t imagine is that she wasn’t screaming her head off to be taken out long before that!
    the technician should be horse whipped!

  2. […] Meanwhile, learning about a cancer patient abandoned for hours in a CT scan didn’t help my mood. Until I read the part about her own mother forgetting about her, too. […]

  3. Jack Page on 12 Oct 2007 at 3:22 pm

    You know I heard about this on MSNBC or one of those stations awhile back and I could barely believe it then. Still having a hard time. How do you leave someone in an MRI machine?

    To me it’s the equivilant of a Dr leaving equipment inside a patient before sewing them up and sending them to intensive care.

    Crazy world. Wonder if the technician was ever punished.

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