The Ambulance
Created by Adobe Firefly
“You with me, Mr. Paige?” Larry Chase asked the man secured in the cart in the back of the ambulance. His question barely loud enough to cut through the wailing siren.
The man on the gurney - white male, late sixties, well nourished, suffering from cranial contusion and blood loss - nodded and mumbled.
“Can you understand me, sir?” the EMT asked him.
Paige nodded.
“Good. Hang in there, we’re going to get you to the hospital before you know it.”
Larry and his partner, Tammy, had been dispatched out to remote hunting lodge following a 911 call. A distressed man indicated that his friend had fallen down the stairs and was bleeding from the head. The lodge was in a nice area used by the wealthy as getaway spots. The locale had beautiful, private views, with one downside being how far away the nearest serious healthcare facilities were. It’d take 45 minutes to get to the closest hospital. And that’s a long time. It can even be a lifetime in a lot of cases.
En route to the lodge, Larry gathered the details he could from the 911 dispatcher. The injured was George M. Paige, who was the lodge’s owner. He reportedly tripped on the top stair of the lodge as he headed down for drinks. Three other men were in the lodge that night. Larry didn’t get their names, but the general impression was that the man who called 911 was probably intoxicated when he called.
Anyone with the cash to own a lodge out in those woods was a somebody. And Larry knew that the hangers on of somebody’s usually needed extra handling, so he looked up Paige on his phone.
“Unreal…” Chase said.
“What’s that, Larry?” Tammy asked.
“Nothing. Just get us there.”
George M. Paige was the CEO of CareWell, one of the largest health insurance providers in America.
----
It was fairly clear what happened. Paige had been drinking, tripped over his own feet and tumbled down the stairs. He banged up his head pretty good, and appeared to have cut it open when he landed. He was concussed and bleeding, but would probably be okay.
Larry and Tammy loaded him into the back of the ambulance. Tammy took the wheel and Larry sat in the back with the patient.
“You with me, Mr. Paige….Can you hear me sir?”
Paige muttered.
“I’m putting in an IV line now,” Larry said, jabbing the needle into the man’s arm.
Paige winced.
“I assume you have insurance, Mr. Paige,” Larry said with a crooked grin.
Paige nodded.
“Good. Good. Not everyone does.” Larry said, as he opened a medicine cabinet on the wall of the ambulance. He pulled out a hypodermic.
“It’s a real shame, you know. I’ve had a lot of patients in here who get patched up and then really can’t get better because they can’t afford it, ya know?”
Paige muttered.
“But you know what’s worse to me? It’s the ones who have insurance but can’t get their claims paid.”
Larry slowly squeezed the hypodermic and flicked it to get rid of air bubbles.
“Take my wife, for instance,” Larry said, inserting the needle into the port for the IV. “Cancer. She could have gotten early treatment, but guess what? The insurance company…your insurance company, Mr. Paige…denied the treatment. The efficacy studies weren’t quite good enough. Cost/benefit analysis, I suppose.”
Larry put his finger on the plunger.
“She died, of course. And, look, I get it. It’s all a numbers game. You can’t report record profits if you help too many people, right?”
Paige’s eyes focused.
“Hey, speaking of numbers, this stuff I’m about to inject into your bag will probably kill you in about 45 minutes. With good luck, you’ll be at the ER in 40. You might make it. Of course, it’s kind of in my best interest for the numbers to work out the other way, right?”
Paige stared up at Larry.
“I’ll be fair, Mr. Paige. I’ll give you the same chance you gave my wife. Provide justification for me to take my finger off the plunger. But, we have a 30 second deadline, I’m afraid. I’m sure you understand.”
Paige mumbled, his tongue not functioning the way he wanted it to.
“Sorry, that doesn’t really provide the information our front office needs.”
Paige raised his voice. “Crazy,” he mumbled. “Crazy.”
Larry nodded. “I’m sorry, Mr. Paige. Your policy doesn’t cover mental health issues.”
He pressed the plunger.
The ambulance sped towards the hospital. Larry leaned back and looked at his watch. Paige had a pretty good chance, really. The injection was innocuous.
But Paige didn’t need to know that for the next 40 minutes.