Weeds have punctured through the vacant parking lot of Martin General Hospital’s emergency room. A makeshift blue tarp covering the hospital’s sign is worn down from flapping in the wind. The hospital doors are locked, many in this county of 22,000 fear permanently.
Some residents worry the hospital’s sudden closure last August could cost them their life.
“I know we all have to die, but it seems like since the hospital closed, there’s a lot more people dying,” Linda Gibson, a lifelong resident of Williamston, North Carolina, said on a recent afternoon while preparing snacks for children in a nearby elementary school kitchen.
More than 100 hospitals have downsized services or closed altogether over the past decade in rural communities like Williamston, where people openly wonder if they’d survive the 25-minute ambulance ride to the nearest hospital if they were in a serious car crash.
I know that sucks, but it’s always been a ~40 minute ambulance ride to the hospital from here and it doesn’t seem like a big deal. Medics can stabilize you in the ambulance. In the case of major trauma there is a helicopter.
“In patients who had cardiac arrest for less than 20 minutes, 60.9% of patients achieved ROSC, compared to 37.9% who arrested for more than 20 minutes.”
In the cases of 30 mins without arrest none survived.
If you have ever performed CPR you’ll also know performing it for 5 minutes is hard. 10 mins… 20 mins… 30 mins… swapping out 3 people and making sure it goes well. All 3 people will be broken tired by the time it’s done.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8043525/
ROSC for those who don’t know is the return of spontaneous circulation.