'Taking Up Resources': Mom Slammed for Calling $15K Ambulance for Son Bitten by Goat
A parent on TikTok has gone viral after their 1-year-old son's finger was bitten by a goat at a pumpkin patch. In a series of videos, the child was shown being rolled on a stretcher into an ambulance.
One video, posted by @trippydayyz, has amassed more than 28.7 million views and 47,000 comments since it was published on October 8.
In the viral clip, a young boy stands next to a goat enclosure and begins crying after the goat bites his finger. The video then cuts to the child's swollen and bruised finger and shows him being wheeled on a stretcher into an ambulance.
Many people in the comments of the original video criticized the parents for calling an ambulance when they could have driven the child. Some commented about the fact that there is a nationwide EMS shortage.
"We're facing a nationwide shortage of ambulance crews and people like you are taking up resources for things that should've been handled at an urgent care," one user wrote. "There are people that are DYING, waiting for an ambulance because someone called for toe pain."
According to public information officer for Wake County EMS Brian Brooks, there is a nationwide EMS worker shortage as well as record patients in emergency rooms. Brooks told Newsweek that emergency room overflows are also causing ambulance shortages since ambulances must wait at the ER bay until a bed becomes available.
"Now, the doctor's offices are overflowing. You can't get an appointment...and the people that are not feeling well have no other option other than to go to the emergency room," Brooks explained to Newsweek. "So when the emergency room overflows, that backs us up because we can't transfer care. When we have to wait an hour or two to get the patient off of our bed, that unit is not available to run calls."
Brooks recommends people utilize urgent care facilities for non-emergency situations rather than using unnecessary resources such as ERs and ambulances.
In another comment left on the video, many users echoed Brooks' sentiments, saying a primary care doctor would have done the job. "A call to the pediatrician would have sufficed," one person commented.
In "part 2" of the video, the parent said the baby's finger became infected which is why they brought him to the hospital. Footage showed the child in a hospital bed with an IV in his arm. The parent said the child was recovering from the infection.
In another update video, the parent said that the ambulance bill was $15,000 because insurance wouldn't cover it. One user in the comments said that the parents should have known the ambulance bill would probably not be covered by insurance.
"Good!! You should have driven him to urgent care," one user commented. "Ambulances and ERs are for emergencies!!!" the TikToker replied to the comment saying that they started a GoFundMe to pay for the cost.
"Only in America can someone waste medical resources, then complain about it," another person wrote.
Although many of the comments were criticisms, some users did come to the parents' defense. Some said that people need to be less quick to judge and others even mentioned the fact that the footage was obviously taken on different days.
"We didn't take him right away," the child's parent wrote in the comments of the video. "We didn't know it was going to get infected till we got home it started swelling and discharging."
