Latest news with #medicalEmergency
Medical News Today
17-07-2025
- Health
- Medical News Today
Does Medicare cover an air ambulance?
Medicare may cover air ambulance transportation if a person has a medical emergency and needs to get to a hospital from somewhere a ground ambulance cannot reach. Air ambulances are usually helicopters or small airplanes. Medicare coverage for emergency flightsOriginal Medicare Part B may cover an airplane or helicopter ambulance if a person needs immediate and fast transport that ground transportation cannot Part B pays for 80% of eligible costs once a person pays their deductible, which is $257 in 2025. People are responsible for the remaining 20% of must also pay the Part B monthly premium of $185. This amount may be higher, depending on someone's a person has a Medicare Advantage plan, it is subject to the same rules as Original Advantage copayments, coinsurance, deductibles, and premiums can vary by the plan type, provider, and to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the average 2025 Medicare Advantage premium is around $17 per month in addition to the Part B premium that a person must pay directly to much does an air ambulance cost with Medicare?Out-of-pocket costs for transportation via an air ambulance can be to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, one 52-mile air ambulance flight can cost between $12,000 and $25,000. The high costs come from:initial aircraft costs (which can be up to $6 million)on-board medical equipmentmaintenance 24/7 availability for specially trained medical personnel and pilotsHelp with air ambulance costsPeople with Original Medicare can sign up for a Medicare supplement plan (also called Medigap) that may help pay for some of Part B's out-of-pocket costs. Medigap plans have monthly premiums, which vary by plan and can also consider registering with the Life Flight Network, a private air ambulance service that might help with remaining out-of-pocket costs.A basic Life Flight Network air ambulance membership costs $85 per and other ambulance servicesMedicare Part B commonly covers ground ambulances in emergencies, particularly when other transport options are unavailable or may harm a person's may sometimes cover nonemergency transportation if a doctor or healthcare professional deems it medically necessary.»Learn More:What transport options does Medicare cover?
ABC News
09-07-2025
- Health
- ABC News
Intensive care doctor Stephen Warrillow details agonising efforts to save Erin Patterson's mushroom murder victims
Doctors who treated Erin Patterson's murder victims have detailed their agonising efforts to save the victims and how one came to form the opinion they were dealing with a killer. Heather Wilkinson and Don and Gail Patterson were killed after they ate beef Wellingtons that were laced with poisonous mushrooms, and served to them by Erin Patterson at her home in Leogantha in July 2023. Ian Patterson survived. All four presented to the hospital with severe symptoms and were treated by a team led by Dr Stephen Warrillow, who is Director of Intensive Care at Austin Health. "They were devastatingly unwell," Dr Warrillow told 7.30. That organ failure began in their livers, which the toxin from death cap mushrooms targets. Dr Warrillow said it was just the beginning of a horrible ordeal for all four of the victims. "Once the liver fails, it tends to drag down all of the other body organs with it," he said. "So whilst the liver is the first organ to be affected, what soon follows is the kidney failure, circulatory failure, and more general metabolic failure. Dr Warrillow said all four patients were then put on mechanical ventilators and dialysis-style machines to try and purify their blood. This was done due to the serious elevation in toxins they all presented with. "We also administered some specific therapies to try and protect the liver from further injury from Amanita toxin poisoning," Dr Warrillow said. "Amanita toxin, once it's been swallowed and has been absorbed from the bowel into circulation, tends to hone in on the liver. "We give multi-dose activated charcoal, so that's ground-up charcoal basically ... we also use other medications such as Silibinin to try and interrupt the toxin poisoning the liver cells directly." While the ICU teams worked overtime, ultimately in three out of four cases their attempts, though immense, proved futile. Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson were deemed too unwell to even attempt liver transplants to save their lives. Don Patterson was given one but ultimately he too succumbed to his poisoning at the hands of triple-murderer Erin Patterson. Dr Warrillow said that surgery takes a huge toll on both the team performing it and the patient. "Liver transplantation is one of the most complex and lengthy surgical procedures that we would ever do," he said. "The patient has to be sick enough to need one, but well enough to get through the surgery. "It takes essentially an entire day and for the theatre team, this is really a marathon. The one person who was able to be saved was Ian Wilkinson and it is something that Dr Warrillow puts down to extraordinary work by the bedside clinical team in the ICU. "He was in multiple organ failure," Dr Warrillow said. "He had very high levels of acid in his blood, higher levels of ammonia toxin in his blood, and looked very much like he was likely to die. "It's quite a remarkable outcome for him that he was ultimately able to survive and could recover so well in the end." Dr Warrillow told 7.30 that he and the treatment team had advised Ian Patterson's family it was likely he would die and credited his fortitude and the work of his nurses for his survival. "Ultimately he stabilised and that took a lot of work from, particularly the bedside nurses, to provide extraordinary measures of support for his circulation, and to try and clear toxins from his blood," he said. "They did a tremendous job with that." He also paid credit to the families for the job they had done in handling a difficult situation. "They are experiencing their tragedy and their catastrophic encounter [in] intensive care," he said. "And they were remarkably gracious and dignified throughout, their attention and love that they expressed towards their critically ill relatives was really very inspiring. "They always expressed considerable gratitude and thanks, particularly to the bedside nursing and medical team who worked so hard to try and save the lives of their loved ones." Despite saving Ian Patterson and the best efforts of the medical teams involved three people are dead. Dr Chris Webster says he has no doubt as to why after his interaction with Erin Patterson at Leongatha Hospital and in the Morwell courtroom but he had also previously treated Heather Wilkinson. He described her death as "particularly distressing" and something that would haunt him. Dr Webster said he had met Heather once before to treat her for a musculoskeletal injury and that both her and her husband Ian were "humble, softly spoken, unassuming and respectful of each other". "The combination of that innate kindness and nice aspects of their behaviour and personality made it particularly distressing for me to see Heather pushed into the ambulance, and just before the door was closed, which then blocked our view of each other, she made sure to make the effort to thank me for the care that the hospital had provided. "That's a very difficult moment because when those words came at me, my mind was [saying], 'But you're going to die.' Dr Webster has previously told the ABC that he felt Erin Patterson was "evil" and that when she presented to him at Leogantha Hospital and told him she had got the mushrooms from "Woolworths" he felt she was "guilty". "There was no doubt in my mind from the moment she said "Woolworths" that she was guilty of deliberately putting these poisonous mushrooms in the meal," Dr Webster told 7.30. The other suspicious part was Erin Patterson leaving the hospital after he had just told her she could have been exposed to poisoning. It caused Dr Webster to turn to a nurse and demand to know where the triple-murderer was. "I said, 'Where the f**k is she'?" he told 7.30. "And Kylie (the nurse) said she left. "I had just told her she's been exposed to a potentially fatal death cap mushroom poisoning ... why would you be anywhere else than hospital?" Shortly after that Dr Webster made a triple-0 call to police. That call would be used as a key piece of evidence in Patterson's trial. He said the moment he dialled the emergency number, he knew it would become a pivotal moment. "When I dialled that last zero and it started to ring, I knew that what I was about to say was going to be evidence in a court trial one day," he told 7.30. "I've heard that call played in court and I've heard it quite a bit in the past 24 hours. "My family is sick of hearing it but I can still hear that stress and tension in my own voice. Asked why he always thought he was dealing with a killer, Dr Webster said it came down to Erin Patterson's action and demeanour. Her unconcerned approach to her own potential situation, her answer to where she got the mushrooms and her indifference to her victims when she saw them in the hospital has seen Dr Webster form a view of her as a sociopathic killer. "She sat quietly in a chair that was only a couple of metres away from Ian and Heather," he recalled. "That absence of concern for the wellbeing of Ian and Heather, I found that quite stark in terms of its oddness. And that contributed to the ongoing tapestry in my mind of her culpability." Dr Webster believes Erin Patterson simply wanted her in-laws and her estranged husband's family out of her life. "She didn't want the in-laws in her life, in particular the ex-husband. "I think because she wanted her children to be her children and not children of a man and a family that she either didn't understand or didn't make efforts to connect with. "For whatever reason, she wanted people out of her life and rather than doing it the way normal person does, she made the very true connection in her mind that, well, if they're dead, they'll be out of my life." The case has captured the attention of media across the globe and seen curious case-watchers descend on the country town of Morwell in Victoria. For Dr Webster that curiosity stems from a disbelief about how Patterson committed the crimes. "I think it's difficult ... to wonder how someone could do what she's done," he told 7.30. "I think the answer is that her brain is not the same as others. "There's an element of sociopathic evil with no regard for how her actions are going to cause pain and suffering." Watch 7.30, Mondays to Thursdays 7:30pm on ABC iview and ABC TV Do you know more about this story? Get in touch with 7.30 here.
Yahoo
05-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
People Are Sharing The Signs From Your Body That You Should Never Ignore, And It's Critical Info
Sometimes, it's easy to brush off that persistent headache as stress or dismiss unusual fatigue as just being busy. But these seemingly small symptoms can also be your body's way of sounding an alarm bell. When u/Original_Giraffe_830 asked what signs from your body you should never ignore, the responses revealed just how crucial it is to listen to these internal messages. From subtle changes that saved lives to symptoms that seemed minor but turned out to be medical emergencies, here are some warning signs that deserve your immediate attention: 1."Heavy imbalance and dizziness, especially when paired with a headache. If some limbs also feel numb, you might already be in the middle of a stroke and part of your brain is dying." —u/Fatal_Explorer 2."The way your body smells. Usually you won't notice because we become kinda numb to our own scent, but if someone tells you you started to smell different (and not in a good way), it's probably because there's something wrong. My mom kept saying that my dad smelled like truffle and that it was overwhelming. I personally couldn't really smell it, so I didn't understand. Later on, he was diagnosed with diabetes and started taking care of himself — changing his diet and taking the meds he was prescribed — and my mom couldn't smell that scent anymore." —u/irondessert "Super Smellers can also detect Parkinson's. This woman smelled it on her husband before he was diagnosed. Docs set up a clinical trial using her sniffer. She smelled the shirts of people with and without a diagnosis, but she got one 'wrong,' and researchers chalked her sniffer up to being bogus. Until, a few months later, the guy she said had it — who the researchers said didn't — got diagnosed too, meaning she can detect Parkinson's even before modern screening tools can." —u/sionnachglic Related: 3."When it hurts to pee. Could be anything, but it's not nothing…" —u/PhucYoCouch "Possibly microbial infections, but yeah — any kind of pain while urinating is a major concern." —u/QueenMePlz 4."Any kind of lump popping up. I felt a small lump under my armpit that I thought was a raised lymph node, but luckily I went to the doctor anyway. It was a very aggressive breast cancer that I detected very early." —u/Electronic_Bass2856 5."Persistent headaches. A family member had headaches that became migraines, then blurry vision, then paralysis on the left side of her body. Brain tumor." —u/Obscurm1 6."When I was 31, I just knew something was wrong. The depression hit out of nowhere, the fatigue was crushing, the weight kept falling off, and the pain was constant. Deep down, I knew it was cancer. But no one listened — not at first. It took eight doctors and nine long, terrifying months before I was finally diagnosed with aggressive stage III colon cancer. By then, it had almost cost me my life. Because it took so long to find, I spent the next four years in a brutally painful fight just to stay alive." —u/johnny_19800 7."Mucus and blood in stool. I saw white stuff — which was mucus — for the very first time and just chalked it up as part of my stool. I didn't even know it was mucus until later on. I assumed the slight bleeding was hemorrhoids, because that's what everyone told me — not to freak out because it will go away on its own. I never had hemorrhoids before and was ignorant enough not to Google it. Well, I started shitting my pants more frequently and had a lot more blood over the next few months. So yeah, it didn't go away on its own, and I felt worse. Anyway, after a colonoscopy, it turns out it's ulcerative colitis — an autoimmune disease that requires medication for life." —u/bio82 Related: 8."Pain in your upper back around your shoulder blades, in your jaw area, and/or neck. A lot of people think heart attacks happen as some wild, painful event. But in actuality, sometimes it's little more than a feeling of pressure, shortness of breath, and/or nausea. This is especially true for women. Never discount these things — especially if you are over 45, even if you are healthy." —u/menellinde 9."For women: very painful and heavy periods — to the point where you cannot function normally." —u/Comfortable-Wafer418 10."If you start peeing all the time and sweating through your sheets regularly, go see a doctor. I wish I'd caught my chronic myelogenous leukemia in time before my spleen grew so huge it cracked open in my abdomen." —u/giggety 11."A stabbing pain in the head. I'm not talking a headache or migraine. I mean it feels like someone is literally stabbing you. In the head. And it doesn't go away no matter what you do. You punch walls because it's so painful. Then the vomiting and confusion start. It was a hemorrhagic stroke. Three brain bleeds. 10 out of 10 do not recommend." —u/addaiya 12."Shortness of breath. They told me it was pregnancy, but it was a symptom of worsening chronic heart failure." —u/Smooth_Storm_9698 Related: 13."Prolonged fatigue or unexplained weight loss." —u/PublicPapaya3218 14."I was tired all the time no matter how much I slept. I'd wake up feeling like I hadn't slept at all, would doze off literally everywhere, and I needed three-hour naps after work. I'd skip workouts (I love lifting weights) and would wake up with cotton mouth, headaches, and chest pains every day for 10 years. Turns out I had the worst sleep apnea my doctor — with 27 years of practice — had ever seen. I was waking up over FIVE HUNDRED times a night. She practically threw a CPAP machine at my face right then and there." "It's almost a year later. I lift weights five or six days a week, and have more energy than anyone I know. I've lost 35 pounds, and I sleep so soundly that I can place a marble on my chest and wake up with it in the same spot in the morning. Blood pressure and LDL cholesterol dropped, and I never have headaches or chest pains anymore. All these years, I kept thinking I was lazy, but I was just exhausted to hell." —u/TesticularPsychosis 15."A couple of years back, I had trouble breathing. I sat up and Googled my symptoms. Google said if you're having trouble breathing, go to your emergency room immediately. I waited four hours for my partner to wake up. He drove me to the ER. I was triaged and immediately sent to resuscitation. Breathing. Never ignore it when you can't do it. It was a full-on asthma attack, but I had never been diagnosed with asthma before. I always thought that how I breathed was how everyone breathed, but looking back, this attack was a long time coming." —u/OzzyGator 16."No one has said dry eyes yet. This affects all ages. The abundance of screen time and TV means we are not blinking enough, causing dry eyes. Dry eyes could lead to astigmatism, myopia, infections, and blurry vision. Kids nowadays are more and more myopic because their iPads cause dry eye, which causes eye strain and leads to glasses wear." —u/Rough_Original2973 17."Your nails suddenly looking weird. Turns out they're a window into your body. Got anemia, low oxygen, liver disease, heart problems? It will show up on your nails. For me, I was in a ton of pain and no one could figure it out because I'm relatively young. But it was awful stomach pain and terrible joint pain with apparently no rhyme or reason. As a side note to this, I noticed some weird tiny holes showing up on my otherwise healthy nails. A specialist, after hearing what I had to say, took my hand, looked at my nails and — without needing the results from bloods he'd just taken — diagnosed me then and there. It turns out I have a severe type of arthritis called PsA. So if your nails suddenly change color, shape, texture, or start getting weird dots or lines you've never seen before, go check it out. It could be nothing, or it could save your life." —u/lolabelle88 18."Extreme thirst." —u/InternetImportant253 Related: 19."Sudden, unexplained anxiety. If you are scared for no reason, there is a reason. Your body is trying to tell you something. I woke up one day at 25 years old and just knew something was wrong. I had no idea what or why — there was no pain or any other indicator — but I knew with every fiber of my being that my life was in danger. After countless tests and dismissals from several doctors, I was finally sent to a neurologist who discovered I had multiple sclerosis. If I hadn't stood up for myself and been insistent, I would not have started the treatments I needed and I would be in a much worse state than I am now." —u/iTsaMe1up 20."If your period returns after complete menopause, it is almost certainly cancer." —u/LadyMacGuffin 21."I knew someone who ignored chronic back pain. Cancer. Died eight months later. Stop pretending you're all Superman. If it hurts, go seek medical attention." —u/espresso_martini__ 22."A small mole — a very tiny small spot — on my foot turned out to be melanoma in situ. I'm not light-skinned, so the chances of melanoma for me were very unlikely. My doctors were surprised that I found it and asked for a biopsy." —u/SlipWest7162 23."A persistent dry cough." —u/Emotional_Snow_1375 "Yep. My friend in elementary school had a cough all year. Fifth grade rolls around and they found out he had cancer. By the middle of sixth grade, he was gone. I'm 30 and I still think about him." —u/MortalJazz Have you ever experienced a symptom that you initially ignored but later realized was significant? Maybe you've had that nagging feeling that something wasn't right, even when everything seemed normal on the surface? Share your experiences in the comments — your story might help someone else recognize an important warning sign in their own body. These are personal experiences shared by individuals, not professional medical advice. Symptoms can have many different causes, and everyone's health situation is unique. If you're experiencing concerning symptoms, please consult with your doctor or seek appropriate medical care. This content is meant to encourage awareness and self-advocacy, not replace professional medical guidance. 24. Note: Responses have been edited for length/clarity. Also in Internet Finds: Also in Internet Finds: Also in Internet Finds:
Yahoo
05-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
His headache felt like a hangover. Paramedics made a scary diagnosis
When Nestor Montalvo woke up last September, he knew something was wrong. He had a headache, and his vision was blurred. The symptoms felt like a "really bad hangover," but he hadn't been drinking the day before. When he tried to stand, the right side of his body was numb. "Everything started spinning. I went to stand up, and I fell," Montalvo, 61, recalled. "I just didn't understand what was going on. I couldn't understand it. I didn't know why I was feeling that way." His wife helped him up and immediately called 911. Paramedics gave him alarming news: He was having a stroke. They rushed him to the emergency room at Catholic Health's Mercy Hospital in Nassau, Long Island. The situation was dire: Montalves said he overheard a doctor telling his daughter, a registered nurse, that he only had a 15% chance of survival. "I was like 'Oh my God, I'm going to die. I don't even have a chance to say goodbye to anybody,'" Montalvo, a retired New York City police officer, recalled. "Time is brain" Doctors who treat strokes have a saying: "Time is brain," said Dr. Taylor Kimberly, the chief of neurocritical care at Massachusetts General Hospital. Kimberly was not involved in Montalvo's treatment. Strokes are caused when blood flow to the brain is interrupted by either a blocked or ruptured blood vessel, Kimberly explained. Montalvo had a blockage, or an ischemic stroke. In these types of strokes, cells in the brain lose access to nutrients and oxygen, causing damage. The longer a stroke goes untreated, the worse the damage can be, Kimberly said. No one knew how long Montalvo had been having a stroke, since the symptoms had been present when he woke up. Dr. Cini Thayil, an emergency medicine attending at Mercy Hospital, was the first doctor to see Montalvo. He was having "very prominent" neurological deficits, she said. "You could see that something was awry," Thayil said. The symptoms triggered Mercy Hospital's stroke protocol. Within 10 minutes of arriving at the ER, Montalvo had been assessed as a potential stroke patient. Fifteen minutes later, he was undergoing a CAT scan. Shortly after doctors reviewed the scans and conferred, Montalvo received a clot-busting medication called TNK, Thayil said. Later, he underwent another minor procedure to ensure the clot was gone. "I could have been a vegetable, I could have died," said Montalves. "But they saved my life." A complicated road to recovery Even though the stroke had been treated, Montalvo's situation remained critical. His vocal cords collapsed, and he needed a tracheotomy to allow him to breathe. He couldn't talk or swallow because of the tubes, and aftereffects from the stroke itself made it difficult for him to speak and eat. When he met Aileen Fairchild, an acute care speech pathologist at Mercy Hospital, he couldn't even swallow a quarter-teaspoon of applesauce unaided. "It was a mess. I couldn't swallow, I couldn't talk, I couldn't eat," Montalvo recalled. For six weeks, Fairchild worked with Montalvo. He received about an hour of speech therapy a day, as well as exercises that targeted the muscles in his throat that contribute to eating and swallowing. He underwent regular scans to make sure the treatments were working. After that month and a half, the tracheotomy tube was removed, allowing Fairchild and Montalvo to work more on his ability to eat and speak. He underwent three procedures to help the muscles in his throat. By Thanksgiving, he was able to eat a regular meal with his family. Now, about a year after his stroke, Montalvo is doing better. He can speak and eat like before, and is enjoying retirement by spending time with his wife, their children, grandchildren, and their dog, Paris. He still uses a cane to walk and is continuing to receive outpatient physical therapy. Montalvo said that he hopes to continue his recovery, which he said has been even tougher than surviving the stroke itself. "You take life for granted, and then when something like this happens, it wakes you up," Montalvo said. "You hear people talk about it, and it just sounds like it's not going to happen to you. All of a sudden, it happens to you." Several people missing from Texas summer camp amid deadly flooding, officials say What a new DOJ memo could mean for naturalized U.S. citizens July 4 holiday week expected to set record for travelers
CBS News
29-06-2025
- CBS News
Colorado officer injured in crash while responding to medical emergency
A police officer in Colorado was injured when they were involved in a crash while responding to a medical emergency on Sunday. The Thornton Police Department said one of its officers was on the way to a medical emergency with their lights and sirens on when they were struck by another vehicle. Authorities said the other driver failed to yield to the patrol vehicle and struck it in the intersection of 104th Avenue and Washington Street. Thornton Police Department The officer suffered non-life-threatening injuries in the crash. Police have closed the intersection while officers are investigating the scene. Drivers are advised to find alternate routes.
