It was a good thirty minutes before we arrived to the ER, and there were at least twenty people ahead of me. They brought me back to ask me generic questions.
“Where does it hurt?” The nurse asked. “What’s your pain management number on a scale of one to five?”
They sent me back to the waiting room when they were finished questioning me. My dad said they noticed I started to lose consciousness, and they finally called me back into a room to see a doctor. They did an x-ray and determined I had a broken rib. I had punctured my lung in the process of falling off the ATV, and it caused my lung to collapse. They were impressed I was even able to find my way out with a concussion and a collapsed lung. If anyone deserved tough points, it was me!
The doctor ended up putting a tube in my chest to help my lung inflate. He did so by finding a break between two of my ribs and used a very tiny needle to slip the tube in through. They sent me up to the ICU where I stayed, alone, for the night.
The next day my best friend came down to stay with me in the hospital. She got a ride from my sister who met her in Marshall. My