Are you in the Medical Field?

Sunday was not a very good day for us. My uncle who had come all the way from Scarborough by public transit to visit us had a very unfortunate and bloody accident.

Here's a breakdown of what happened:

- Around 3pm, a neighbor (I did not know it at the time), was frantically ringing our doorbell to tell us that an old man fell around the corner from our street and that he was bleeding pretty badly. Since my dad had gone to pick up my grandmother by car, I kindly dismissed her and pointed to a few other Asian households in the area.
- After closing the door, it clicked that typically when my grandmother comes to our house, my uncle would as well. It was too eerie of a coincidence to not go take a look, so I dropped what I was doing, put on my shoes and ran out.
- I was surprised how many people were out on the street, even if the weather was great. As I rounded the corner a few other neighbors tried to explain the situation to me and how the old man kept saying he was going to the end of the street (my street). Then I saw him, sitting on the cable box, with another good Samaritan holding a towel to his head and applying pressure.
- I arrived at the scene, a bit shocked at the amount of blood. After getting updates from the the good Samaritan (the neighbor who rang our doorbell), I calmly asked to borrow a cell phone to call home to tell them to gather my wallet and keys so I could go with my uncle to the hospital in the ambulance.
-The ambulance people arrived, bandaged my uncle up and off we went; the ambulance staff were pretty quick, but I think they could have done a better job trying to stop the bleeding. all they did was put some gauze on and put a tight bandage on his head. The bandage wasn't very effective on stopping the bleeding.
- Next 5 hours were spent mostly in the triage room at Credit Valley Hospital. While for the most part the staff were kind, they were probably not very effective/diligent at their jobs. For the most part, they gave me the vibe that they were blue collar workers who were waiting to punch out (their time cards).
- Other thoughts that I had while I was waiting with my uncle:

• How can they let someone with an open cut to the brow, visibly still bleeding sit in a triage room for so long?
• How can a hospital that big have only 3 emergency doctors on staff, and worst of all, how can all 3 be in the same emergency room?!
• Why did the nurse who took us to a room clean his wound, then tell me to hold the the gauze to his cut? I wasn't even wearing latex gloves and have no medical training. I waited for about a minute till the doctor came, and had to wash my hands of blood.
• Nurse: "Do you work in the medical field?" Me: "Nope; I work in telecommunications." Nurse: "...". Maybe I should have been freaking out instead of being so calm? Blood doesn't bother me at all.
  
• Why did the doctor keep fumbling with the stitching? At one point me dropped the scissors!! That's when he told me to call the nurse (to get a fresh pair of scissors). The nurse (the same one who hold me to apply pressure) was just sitting at the reception desk!!! WTF?!!

The whole turn of events were very unfortunate; hopefully my uncle will have a full recovery soon. I really appreciate the help that our neighbors provided and I will write a letter to the city to cite them for a citizen's award.