Chris breaks his foot rock jumping, waits 27hrs in emergency.

Waiting to be transfered to Canberra Hospital

Very strange. Chris has jumped here before, and there were 8 people jumping the afternoon we arrived. Chris jumped holding a camera on his head, which might have meant he went deeper, and it might have been he didn't jump out, either way he clipped a rock, compound fracture in the foot.

The video

I carried him out of there (100m climb over 1km) - he was in a lot of pain. Here's a video of the carry and a look an early look at his foot.

The carry

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Took him to emergency (7:30pm), then took Sunshine and Eve home. I uploaded all the photos and videos and fell asleep. Woke at 1:30am and went in to find him sitting in the waiting room, wound not cleaned, needing stitches, still in pain, with a basic bandage compressing on his swelling (no ice), foot not elevated.

I hit the roof! In no time he was in getting xrayed, given stronger pain killers, and the whole waiting room (about 15 people) were put through in the 30 minutes Chris was being seen to. Someone there at reception had completely fucked up. Everyone was very apologetic, explaining that their triage system wasn't working... I will get to the bottom of that story.

Chris arriving at Calvary

Because he'd gone 7 hours with an uncleaned wound over a fracture, they checked him in on an antibiotic drip for the risk of infection. Next morning we went in to see him at 7:30. They had just decided to transfer him to another hospital because they couldn't deal with compound fractures. He waited until 11:30 before being transfered to Canberra Hospital, and waited there until 2:30pm before being wheeled into a room... he still awaits specialist consultation, his wound is not stitched or cleaned.

Update: 6pm, almost 24hrs since checking in at Calvary, 8 hours since being transfered to Canberra, and Chris has still not been seen by a specialist at Canberra. I have spoken to the manager of Emergency Department Canberra Hospital who seemed to be initially unaware of Chris' ordeal at Calvary the night before. He assured me that a specialist would see Chris tonight and that he would go into surgery to clean and stitch the wound. Unfortunately this means another 48hrs stay over at Canberra, after surgery. He made no offer to keep me updated.

I also spoke to the Coordinator at Calvary, June Mo and made her aware of the saga, and to see if there was anything she could do to make Canberra more aware of Chris' history at Calvary, and to speed up the consultation. All June could do is look into the Calvary notes, and shared concern at the 7 hour wait before xray or adequate primary care. She couldn't comment on the 8 hour wait so far at Canberra, or why Chris was transfered to Canberra so late.

Update: 11:30am, Wednesday 19 January. Chris is out of surgery, wound has been cleaned but he will be held for at least 48hours while they test swabs for bacteria and infection.

After the operation

Update: 9:20am, Saturday 22 January. Chris came home last night, with a bag of antibiotics and pain killers. Got a call last night however, to go back to the hospital and get a different set of antibiotics of something.