Emergency and Chaos!

Yesterday afternoon something bit Jit's dad in the garden. At first we thought it was a snake, but it later turned out to be a centipede. It was extremely painful!

Jit's dad put a tourniquet around his leg, used a razor blade to lance the bite and mixed a compound of leaves to put on the bite, he thought it was a snake bit because there was part of a fang looking remnant in the bite. It was a pincer though, not a fang.

There is no emergency procedure in the community, or at least nobody knew what to do. There is no 911 number or equivalent and no ambulance. I was shocked by the chaos and lack of preparation. If somebody was burned or scalded or had a compound fracture I have no idea how the community would handle it, probably try to get a taxi! In any case motorbikes took Jit's dad, Jit, and I to the dock, we took the small boat across, Jit's dad was in real pain, and we still thought it was a snake bit. We took a Taxi to the Red Cross Snake bit center, but they said for us to go to a hospital. I finally put my foot down and we flagged a van that was driving by with a red cross on it and they helped us get to Chula hospital. Jit's dad's foot was swollen and dark.

When we were in the taxi we were caught in traffic, I asked if somebody could call an ambulance or somebody to help us through traffic. Jit called many people, but it was phone tag. I have no idea why we did not go to a clinic nearer our community or in Phra Pradaeng. We finally got to the hospital and Jit's dad got help. It took six hours, because they wanted to observe Jit's dad for side effects. Jit's dad was suffering from the medication, it was like he was drunk, his brain was not altogether there. Jit's dad was complaining about losing his memory, he looked scared.

It looks like it was a millipede or centipede. I read about them in a blog about Issan, the are supposed to be very painful. His foot was swollen and very sore. It is supposed to last two or three days.

I watched an ITV soap opera in the lobby while we were waiting. There was some Rasputin Hippy terrorizing people, the drama was either terrible or funny, I am not sure which.

In the morning Jit's dad was better but we went back to the hospital for a drug test. Git drove us to the hospital, we left Jit's dad there to go to STOU. Run went to the hospital to get Jit's dad home.

Chula hospital is immense. It is a very large teaching hospital, it is more of a campus of buildings then a hospital, there was even a small 7-11 in the building. Next to Jit's dad in the emergency room was a small semi-conscious girl about 3 or 4. There were many older people who were sick and quite a few younger people with injuries. There were Christmas decorations still up Going back through Phra Pradaeng they still have the Christmas decorations going across the road.

I used Google to look up about Thailand centipedes. They are dangerous and potentially life threatening.

I think that the driving force for Internet usage could be health, then economics and government, then education, and finally fun. Kid's would probably reverse that order, but for what I have seen health information is what people ask me to look up in the community.

Our community, and maybe many others, needs some emergency procedures! It was chaos trying to get help, there was much concern, but we were pretty much on our own to get to a hospital or clinic. All that is needed is a simple step by step list of procedures and contacts.

It was another Thailand experience.

We catch the train to Lampang in five hours.