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10 miles to escape a bill (lemmy.today)
submitted 1 week ago by to c/workreform@lemmy.world
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[–] 43 points 1 week ago (4 children)

here in Canada I had an accident once. Was loaded onto a STARS helicopter, flown 80 miles to the nearest city, unloaded into an ambulance for the rest of the trip to the hospital, x-rayed, stitches, and two surgeries.

Only thing I paid for was a dollar for some really bad coffee from the hospital canteen.

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  • [–] 16 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    Here in Slovenia tourists with inappropriate mountaneering equipment constantly get hurt in the mountains and are rescued by helicopter without having to pay for anything.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 week ago

    My mom was on Medicare here in the US (the insurance that the disabled and elderly get, that Bernie based his single payer plan off of expanding). Her bowel ruptured, several hours in the ER, 1 hour helicopter ride, 30 days in the ICU, a few days in a step down, an ambulance ride 2 hours back to her house.

    Never got a bill for it.

    But nooooo, it'd be so horrible if all Americans had access to that.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    Not overly related but I rarely hear of STARS. At one point our school (grades 7-12)did a 24 hour relay marathon for STARS (no idea on money that was raised), but being a fat kid I was support crew making sure people were ready for their lap had water etc. They didn't technically budget the support people sleeping time or spots to sleep. I slept in the closest bathroom since it was done in a city park, but not long or often. Though runners will still up about every hour for their lap (probably 10-15min or so run been awhile) which I'd have hated more anyways.

    Overall I think it was still good to put effort for STARS but you wouldn't have heard me saying that at the time.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 week ago

    Ya STARS is one of those things most people don't pay much attention to until it's needed, but they are a really nice thing to have especially considering how large our country is.

    My trip with them was about 80 miles to Winnipeg, and took about 18 minutes from the time they stuffed me in the back to the time they put me into the ambulance at the airport. I can't imagine how long that would have taken by ground.

    Honestly I don't think I needed to get there that fast, but they were worried because I had head trauma and had lost a lot of blood so they erred on the side of caution, which was understandable.

    https://www.stars.ca/ is their website if anyone is wondering what STARS is.)

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