"Two emergency trips"

Incident 1

On one morning, I fell off my horse at home and was unconscious for a very short time, maybe 2 minutes. I was able to call my family who came to my house to monitor any concussion and injuries. Around midday, I had a shower and when I bent down, I had clear fluid running from my nose which raised concerns and we decided to go to Urgent Care in Joondalup. As this was a head injury I was referred straight to Joondalup Emergency. From here, I was admitted fairly quickly, which was fantastic. I was lying on a bed and they only had rolled up towels to put on either side of my head, trying to immobilize any neck and head movement, which did not work.

Eventually a doctor came and ordered a CT scan of my head and neck, and an Xray of my shoulder and knee, which were causing me severe pain. I then waited several hours to go for my CT scan. When the doctor returned, they told me they had faxed the radiology requests upstairs and they had run out of paper and not received the requests, hence the delay. The doctor had now hand delivered the papers and I was due to have my CT scans and X-rays soon. I then waited another 3-4 hours for my radiology tests. All came back clear, and I was discharged in the evening without any pain medication for my knee and shoulder.

My shoulder and knee did not improve over the following 4 weeks, and the pain was significantly impacting my life and sleep. My physio insisted on getting a private MRI on my knee and shoulder, which on the following month revealed a fractured collarbone in my shoulder. It seemed this fracture was missed in the original Xray at Joondalup Hospital and therefore I believe my shoulder was treated incorrectly within this time period.

Whilst I was originally feeling confident being admitted as soon as presenting with a head injury, the experience I had lacked attention to detail and follow up care i.e. lying around for hours with a potential head injury, radiology requests not being received, and being discharged with a missed fracture and no pain relief. At the time of writing this, my shoulder is still causing me discomfort.

Incident 2 – About 14 months later

Written with support from family to provide timeline

Roughly an hour before midday, I rang my partner from my apple watch asking them to come home. I did not know what was happening and was unable to tell them I had collapsed, just that I needed them to come home. I do not remember this call. My partner arrived roughly 45 minutes later and called an ambulance instantly when they saw me. I was laying on the floor with a blood pool from my nose and lost control of my bladder.

The Ambulance ran through some basic checks and while doing so I vomited and soiled myself. I told the paramedics I had dreadful head pain. After I vomited they suspected food poisoning. They also asked my partner whether I would have consumed alcohol in the morning (which I had not). After running an ECG on me to check for any irregularities I was loaded into the Ambulance and left the property an hour later.

I arrived at Joondalup Emergency roughly midday and was kept in the ambulance due to capacity constraints within Emergency. I was moved from the Ambulance to a hallway within Emergency over 2 hours later. I remember being unable to open my eyes due to light sensitivity and blurriness and suffering from severe head and neck pain but was left unattended for long periods and received no medication. I was eventually moved from the corridor to a cubicle 2 hours after this when my partner was allowed through to sit with me. Once in the Emergency cubicle, my bloods were taken approximately 30 minutes later which showed abnormalities for the heart enzyme. It was at this point I received some Panadol after continuously complaining of head and neck pain and unable to sit and barely open my eyes. An ECG was taken 20 minutes after this. By the following hour, there had been failed 3 attempts to take me for a CT scan but having both an Orderly and Nurse together to take me for the scan didn’t align until the fourth time. Eventually I had the CT scan. Roughly over an hour later, the CT results showed bleeding in my brain caused by a ruptured brain aneurysm. That is approximately 7-8 hours of being in Joondalup Emergency with the top 4 symptoms of a ruptured brain aneurysm: headache, neck pain, vomiting and eye/ vision discomfort and blurriness. From here I was transferred promptly to another hospital to receive the care I need. I genuinely feel lucky to be alive with what I believe to be was such a late diagnosis.