Swine flu victim asked to leave ER dies next day

Emphasis added by me.

Pot/Kettle?

From what I've heard from the 3 folks I know who've had it, this thing hits you like a ton of bricks -- you're fine when you get up, and 3 hours later you've got a 105 degree fever and too sick to move. Now do you think anyone in any ER who presents with a high fever isn't going to handled as a "potential H1N1" and not left to sit in the ER waiting room with no mask, no nothing? (We're triaging at the door -- you hit the door with a fever, you come back with a rapid flu, and if you're positive for "A" you get tamiflu (fluids if needed) and rapidly sent back home if you're stable.

What I'm thinking (and I don't know, wasn't there) is that this guy may have been one of the frequent "give me demerol / sober me up / feed me / let me yell, scream and act out on your dime" folks we get in our ER. He may have come in for that, and actually have gotten sick with H1N1 and died d/t that the next day. It really can hit that fast.

10/8/2009
Family members and shelter friends are mourning the loss of 58-year-old Irving Neil Range, a homeless man who died in the Emergency Room at Christus Spohn Memorial Medical Center on Thursday.
Officials say the swine flu caused him to die, but the circumstances surrounding his death have more than a few people asking questions and wondering if his death could have been prevented.
"As soon as I saw him, just looking at him, I knew he needed an ambulance by the way he looked. He was sweating, hunched over, and could barely talk," said Rafael Ortiz, the Labor Force Manager for the Good Samaritan Rescue Mission.
Shelter worker Rafael Ortiz was the last person, other than medical workers, who saw Irving Neil Range alive.
Shelter workers say he came back to the Rescue Mission after waiting for hours in the Emergency Room at Christus Spohn Hospital Friday evening.
"He said while he was waiting to be seen, he was sitting in the chair , having trouble breathing. He decided to lay down on the ground, and the only thing that would help him breathe well. He wasn't laying there long, when a security guard came and told him he had to move along and he said he didn't want to argue with the guy and he'd already been there so long, he just decided to come back here," said Mark Martin, the Front Desk Manager at the Mission.
We talked to Irving's brother on the phone. He says he and other family members are still mourning Irving's death and did not want to talk on camera, but he did tell us about the run-in Irving had with the security guard at the hospital and says his brother got so weary after waiting more than four hours for the result of an X-Ray and blood work that was taken in the ER that Irving just decided to leave the hospital.
"Everyone needs to be taken care of right now, but this man was obviously sick, very, very sick. I would have hoped that they would have put him on a bed in a hallway something like that, if they couldn't get him into a room," said Carole Murphrey, Director of Good Samaritan Rescue Mission.
Irving's brother says he ended up dying in the Christus Spohn Memorial Medical Center Emergency Room Friday morning after being taken by ambulance back to the hospital.
Although Irving Range did not have a permanent address, Rescue Mission workers say he had plenty of friends and has left behind a lasting impression on those who knew him.
"I've had a couple of people distraught and have had a couple people say is there something I can do to help? Can you pass condolences on to his family and it's not like lives weren't touched by his presence and passing as well," Martin said.

I think we're all just trying to figure out how and why this happened. We did read the article, and being what it is, it seems like there's a lot missing. Speculating is not the same thing as accusing, and I don't think anyone is suggesting that this isn't a sad case regardless.

But one person wrote that he was possibly one of their demerol junkies. Even if he was, the guard was completely wrong. There is also no reason for that poster to assume that he was a lowlife. He was just a fellow human being and he's gone and the guard should not have put him out.