Edith Rodriguez and the nurse who didn’t treat her
Ranting at 5AM often gets me into trouble. This will be one of those times.
I'd wanted to use my LJ again to track down one tiny little piece of information, but now I don't have to.
Have you heard the story of Edith Rodriguez? If not, check out the thorough Wikipedia article on her. Short version - she went to the emergency room and was left to die, puking blood in the waiting room floor while the medical staff were more interested in having the police drag her away than treating her. People tried to call 911 to get someone to take her to a hospital that would help her and were refused.
Most of the early articles about this referred to the head nurse on duty who refused to treat her and watched her die screaming and kicking while janitors mopped up the blood and puke around her. At first her name was never mentioned. I wanted to ask you, dear readers, to find her name for me. Certainly one of you live in the area that this happened or worked for the press or knew a guy who knew a guy who knew someone at that hospital. I wanted to post her name here so that anytime one of you went to the hospital you could check out the nurse's name tag to see if you're nurse is That Nurse.
Since I first saw this news article, two things happened. One, I calmed down. I realized that I shouldn't be one of the masses eager to pass judgment when I don't know all the facts. There are two sides to every story. Who am I to decide whom, if anyone, is at fault here? Am I a trained medical professional? No I am not. So, I became my usually rational and non-reactionary self.
The other thing that happened? We learned her name: Linda Ruttlen. That's spelled EL-EYE-EN-DEE-AYE space ARE-YOU-TEE-TEE-EL-EE-EN. Linda Ruttlen.
I’m looking at the Wikipedia article about this. I realize that this isn't the best source of information, but they have more accuracy than a NY Times story by Jayson Blair and are less biased than Fox News, so we'll use it as a valid source for now. According to the article, Nurse LINDA RUTTLEN repeatedly refused to treat the patient and called the police stating that Ms Rodriguez was causing a disturbance. Apparently, the screams of "Oh God, The Pain, I'm Dying" were distracting Linda Ruttlen, who was initially reported to be Nurse Linda Witland. Clearly, since the woman had been to ER whining about her insignificant little stomach ache twice already (which turned out to be a simple Perforated Large Bowel, something any phys ed teacher would tell you to walk off and quit crying about), she was no longer a human being in need of emergency care and was now a trespasser. NURSE RUTTLEN, being a registered nurse since 1985, recognized the telltale signs of faking an illness. I remember trying to get out of going to school as a child. I used to slide out of my wheelchair and puke blood all over the floor, just like Rodriguiz. Did this fool Mom? No, and this kind of behavior didn’t fool a trained professional like LINDA RUTTLEN either.
After the autopsy was performed and the Perforated Large Bowel and resulting infection was found, the hospital had the nerve to placed Linda Ruttlen on leave. The article didn’t say anything about whether this was with or without pay. Later, she resigned. Wouldn't you? How could they question her judgment? Nurse Linda couldn’t treat everyone, could she? She was busy doing other things, like calling the police to have dying patients thrown out.
Also, let’s not forget that nurses have to prioritize their patients. They are TRAINED (and I am not, and odds are neither are you) to pick and choose who needs care. I don't know what these criteria are. Maybe she was left in the floor because she was overweight. Maybe because of past drug use, although the coroner said there was methamphetamine in her system but not a 'life-threatening' amount. Maybe it’s because she was uninsured. Maybe there wasn't enough blood in her vomit.
An LA Times article says that she had a discharge slip from her previous visit to the hospital that said to "return to ER if nausea, vomit, more pain or any worse". To be fair to NURSE RUTTLEN (whose address I'd give you if I had it so you could say hello or maybe send her a nice fruit basket), I don’t know if the note says "and we will do something about it" or "and we will use our medical skills to save your life" or maybe just "and we'll supply a nice spot on the linoleum for you to puke blood on". Maybe, to save time, maybe the nurse should have said "See this note at the bottom? The one about coming back to the ER? We just put that to be polite. It’s like 'Have A Nice Day'. We don't really mean it."
This happened May 9th 2007. I checked what I hoped was another reliable source. According to the web site for the State of California Department of Consumer Affairs, Linda Ruttlen has been a registered nurse since January 1st, 1985 in the city of Los Angeles. Her license number is 389152 and is currently active. This page was last updated June 26th 2007. According to this page, no disciplinary action has been taken against Ms. Ruttlen. Therefore, it may be presumed that the suspension was not officially considered a disciplinary action. Maybe it was with pay. Maybe it was a slap on the wrist. Maybe they gave her a vacation.
Please don’t forget that, as far as we know, she didn’t die in the emergency room. She died in the wheelchair while the cops were trying to get her into the back of their cruiser. Are they to blame? I don’t know. They aren’t medical professionals like the nurse who called them.
So here’s to you, Linda Ruttlen. I know that, if I ever stagger into an emergency with a severed arm, an arrow sticking out of my eye, a tree branch shoved completely through my abdomen and blood pouring out my ass, I’ll feel better knowing you’re there to ignore me. I can lie down comfortably on the cool emergency room floor as the janitor mops up my bodily fluids, comforted in the fact that, if you’re doing nothing to save me, then I must not really be that sick.
I am tempted to ask for the name of the guy at 911 who refused to send help, but let’s honest there - if you were working the 911 lines and got a story like this, would you have believed it was as bad as they described? I think I’d have made the assumption that the person on the phone was panicking and that the hospital staff was doing their best. I would have done the same thing they did, because my job would be to see that people in need get to the hospital where they can be taken care of, and if you are in the emergency room my job would be done and I can move on to helping someone else. After all, if they won’t take care of you at the hospital, where else is there to go?
I'd wanted to use my LJ again to track down one tiny little piece of information, but now I don't have to.
Have you heard the story of Edith Rodriguez? If not, check out the thorough Wikipedia article on her. Short version - she went to the emergency room and was left to die, puking blood in the waiting room floor while the medical staff were more interested in having the police drag her away than treating her. People tried to call 911 to get someone to take her to a hospital that would help her and were refused.
Most of the early articles about this referred to the head nurse on duty who refused to treat her and watched her die screaming and kicking while janitors mopped up the blood and puke around her. At first her name was never mentioned. I wanted to ask you, dear readers, to find her name for me. Certainly one of you live in the area that this happened or worked for the press or knew a guy who knew a guy who knew someone at that hospital. I wanted to post her name here so that anytime one of you went to the hospital you could check out the nurse's name tag to see if you're nurse is That Nurse.
Since I first saw this news article, two things happened. One, I calmed down. I realized that I shouldn't be one of the masses eager to pass judgment when I don't know all the facts. There are two sides to every story. Who am I to decide whom, if anyone, is at fault here? Am I a trained medical professional? No I am not. So, I became my usually rational and non-reactionary self.
The other thing that happened? We learned her name: Linda Ruttlen. That's spelled EL-EYE-EN-DEE-AYE space ARE-YOU-TEE-TEE-EL-EE-EN. Linda Ruttlen.
I’m looking at the Wikipedia article about this. I realize that this isn't the best source of information, but they have more accuracy than a NY Times story by Jayson Blair and are less biased than Fox News, so we'll use it as a valid source for now. According to the article, Nurse LINDA RUTTLEN repeatedly refused to treat the patient and called the police stating that Ms Rodriguez was causing a disturbance. Apparently, the screams of "Oh God, The Pain, I'm Dying" were distracting Linda Ruttlen, who was initially reported to be Nurse Linda Witland. Clearly, since the woman had been to ER whining about her insignificant little stomach ache twice already (which turned out to be a simple Perforated Large Bowel, something any phys ed teacher would tell you to walk off and quit crying about), she was no longer a human being in need of emergency care and was now a trespasser. NURSE RUTTLEN, being a registered nurse since 1985, recognized the telltale signs of faking an illness. I remember trying to get out of going to school as a child. I used to slide out of my wheelchair and puke blood all over the floor, just like Rodriguiz. Did this fool Mom? No, and this kind of behavior didn’t fool a trained professional like LINDA RUTTLEN either.
After the autopsy was performed and the Perforated Large Bowel and resulting infection was found, the hospital had the nerve to placed Linda Ruttlen on leave. The article didn’t say anything about whether this was with or without pay. Later, she resigned. Wouldn't you? How could they question her judgment? Nurse Linda couldn’t treat everyone, could she? She was busy doing other things, like calling the police to have dying patients thrown out.
Also, let’s not forget that nurses have to prioritize their patients. They are TRAINED (and I am not, and odds are neither are you) to pick and choose who needs care. I don't know what these criteria are. Maybe she was left in the floor because she was overweight. Maybe because of past drug use, although the coroner said there was methamphetamine in her system but not a 'life-threatening' amount. Maybe it’s because she was uninsured. Maybe there wasn't enough blood in her vomit.
An LA Times article says that she had a discharge slip from her previous visit to the hospital that said to "return to ER if nausea, vomit, more pain or any worse". To be fair to NURSE RUTTLEN (whose address I'd give you if I had it so you could say hello or maybe send her a nice fruit basket), I don’t know if the note says "and we will do something about it" or "and we will use our medical skills to save your life" or maybe just "and we'll supply a nice spot on the linoleum for you to puke blood on". Maybe, to save time, maybe the nurse should have said "See this note at the bottom? The one about coming back to the ER? We just put that to be polite. It’s like 'Have A Nice Day'. We don't really mean it."
This happened May 9th 2007. I checked what I hoped was another reliable source. According to the web site for the State of California Department of Consumer Affairs, Linda Ruttlen has been a registered nurse since January 1st, 1985 in the city of Los Angeles. Her license number is 389152 and is currently active. This page was last updated June 26th 2007. According to this page, no disciplinary action has been taken against Ms. Ruttlen. Therefore, it may be presumed that the suspension was not officially considered a disciplinary action. Maybe it was with pay. Maybe it was a slap on the wrist. Maybe they gave her a vacation.
Please don’t forget that, as far as we know, she didn’t die in the emergency room. She died in the wheelchair while the cops were trying to get her into the back of their cruiser. Are they to blame? I don’t know. They aren’t medical professionals like the nurse who called them.
So here’s to you, Linda Ruttlen. I know that, if I ever stagger into an emergency with a severed arm, an arrow sticking out of my eye, a tree branch shoved completely through my abdomen and blood pouring out my ass, I’ll feel better knowing you’re there to ignore me. I can lie down comfortably on the cool emergency room floor as the janitor mops up my bodily fluids, comforted in the fact that, if you’re doing nothing to save me, then I must not really be that sick.
I am tempted to ask for the name of the guy at 911 who refused to send help, but let’s honest there - if you were working the 911 lines and got a story like this, would you have believed it was as bad as they described? I think I’d have made the assumption that the person on the phone was panicking and that the hospital staff was doing their best. I would have done the same thing they did, because my job would be to see that people in need get to the hospital where they can be taken care of, and if you are in the emergency room my job would be done and I can move on to helping someone else. After all, if they won’t take care of you at the hospital, where else is there to go?