09-25-2017, 10:16 PM
Some of you at the tailgate met my friend Carl (old bearded guy with a cane). Well we had fun meeting you guys, had a blast watching the Vikings roar out 28-3 and finish it off from the best seats we've had in 5 trips (section 311, 40 yard line), and then it was time to leave. Uh-oh.
Carl took a spill down down the stairs and whacked his head on the floor hard enough to bleed and a couple other scrapes/bruises. Fortunately there were a bunch of people to alert security/emt etc. Down to the first aid room, then an ambulance (!) to Hennepin Medical center ER they said mostly as a precaution: they wanted to make sure Carl hadn't done anything to his neck, and he's had some past concussions.
Got to Hennepin roughly 4PM, they had put a neck collar on him (again precautionary) and got around to CT and CAT scans as well as an EKG. We didn't call his wife yet before we had some actual results. "Hi honey I'm in the ER" isn't something you want to leave on a voice mail. Then he started having a pain in his chest. On top of that, wearing the neck collar was really getting to him, making him agitated and I had to talk him down a bit and ask (pester?) one of the docs if they could please get the CT results and take the collar off because Carl was going buggy.
Maybe 5:30 the CT scan came back negative and the collar was taken off (Kenny Mayne voice, "And there was much rejoicing") but now there was this mysterious chest pain to deal with... was it a heart problem (Carl hasn't had any of that yet) or just some muscle bruise/pull? Time for another CT scan, and by now it was 6PM and we figured we had to call his wife. Easier said than done. Cue an hour+ again of waiting for the CT scan results while I call his wife about 10 times and she's not answering.
Now for the literal 411 on the modern age: With his wife out, the next try was to either his daughter or sons, but he's had them programmed on speed dial so long Carl no longer remembered the actual numbers (facepalm emoji) so we had to call 411 first to get the numbers before calling them. And they were out too. (headbang emoji). By now it's 8PM and they decide to have Carl admitted for the night mostly because they can't nail down what that chest pain is. Also possibly because he couldn't remember the fall... or pretty much the entire trip to Hennepin Medical, even though at the time he was answering questions both in the first aid room at USB and in the ambulance.
Finally, about 8:20 PM Carl got his wife on the phone, and had to sort out 2 complications:
1. We'd come up to the game on the light rail. His car was at the MOA.
2. I'd come up on the bus for the weekend at his place. I had no car and my stuff was at Carl's place, including my return bus ticket.
So Carl's wife Marlys had to contact the son or daughter, have them pick her up to get Carl's car at MOA, bring that up to Hennepin and take me back to their apartment, then up to the Greyhound depot Monday morning.
Just after 9PM, Carl gets the call that contact has been made and his wife is on the way. Around 9:45, wife, daughter, granddaughter and son-in-law all show up along with the doctor. Probably took them longer to find the room in that Hennepin maze than it did to get the car from MOA and drive up.
After all that, I got home today without any further disasters and called 1/2 hour ago and found out Carl is out of the hospital (WHEW!).
Carl took a spill down down the stairs and whacked his head on the floor hard enough to bleed and a couple other scrapes/bruises. Fortunately there were a bunch of people to alert security/emt etc. Down to the first aid room, then an ambulance (!) to Hennepin Medical center ER they said mostly as a precaution: they wanted to make sure Carl hadn't done anything to his neck, and he's had some past concussions.
Got to Hennepin roughly 4PM, they had put a neck collar on him (again precautionary) and got around to CT and CAT scans as well as an EKG. We didn't call his wife yet before we had some actual results. "Hi honey I'm in the ER" isn't something you want to leave on a voice mail. Then he started having a pain in his chest. On top of that, wearing the neck collar was really getting to him, making him agitated and I had to talk him down a bit and ask (pester?) one of the docs if they could please get the CT results and take the collar off because Carl was going buggy.
Maybe 5:30 the CT scan came back negative and the collar was taken off (Kenny Mayne voice, "And there was much rejoicing") but now there was this mysterious chest pain to deal with... was it a heart problem (Carl hasn't had any of that yet) or just some muscle bruise/pull? Time for another CT scan, and by now it was 6PM and we figured we had to call his wife. Easier said than done. Cue an hour+ again of waiting for the CT scan results while I call his wife about 10 times and she's not answering.
Now for the literal 411 on the modern age: With his wife out, the next try was to either his daughter or sons, but he's had them programmed on speed dial so long Carl no longer remembered the actual numbers (facepalm emoji) so we had to call 411 first to get the numbers before calling them. And they were out too. (headbang emoji). By now it's 8PM and they decide to have Carl admitted for the night mostly because they can't nail down what that chest pain is. Also possibly because he couldn't remember the fall... or pretty much the entire trip to Hennepin Medical, even though at the time he was answering questions both in the first aid room at USB and in the ambulance.
Finally, about 8:20 PM Carl got his wife on the phone, and had to sort out 2 complications:
1. We'd come up to the game on the light rail. His car was at the MOA.
2. I'd come up on the bus for the weekend at his place. I had no car and my stuff was at Carl's place, including my return bus ticket.
So Carl's wife Marlys had to contact the son or daughter, have them pick her up to get Carl's car at MOA, bring that up to Hennepin and take me back to their apartment, then up to the Greyhound depot Monday morning.
Just after 9PM, Carl gets the call that contact has been made and his wife is on the way. Around 9:45, wife, daughter, granddaughter and son-in-law all show up along with the doctor. Probably took them longer to find the room in that Hennepin maze than it did to get the car from MOA and drive up.
After all that, I got home today without any further disasters and called 1/2 hour ago and found out Carl is out of the hospital (WHEW!).
