Originally posted by pepperberry farm my most memorable ER experience was just after the 2011 tornado here - it hit one of the two local hospitals, so all casualties were being sent to the other hospital, including as many patients from the damaged one as they could manage...
my mother-in-law and her husband had been in the path of the tornado and had been taken to the ER, but their injuries were not life-threatening; knowing what I do about the triage procedures for this type of emergency, I knew they would never be seen timely - we decided to pick them up and take them home to their hospital (about 20 miles away)...
if you've never been in a hospital with no electricity - it's creepy; no bright lights, no air-conditioning, and no background music.... it's a horror-movie setting that completely unnerves you...
now - back to our regularly-scheduled mayhem...
I once spent three days in a hospital ER, as a patient. Bizarre experience. There was electricity which produced light but it was in the tropics and the airconditioning was pretty minimalist and there was no piped music, just the noises from the other customers suffering from whatever they were suffering. And it was in a foreign country that used a language I do not know so all I understood was the shift handover recitations of each patient's problems, conducted in English - presumably to keep it secret from the customers.