Det News On Speight's Post-Injury Fiasco At Purdue
Angelique Chengelis was able to speak with Speight's parents on the experience, and what a nightmare it was. This is totally unacceptable from a Big Ten university (or any university, for that matter). LINK and some lowlights:
Michigan and Michigan State have full X-ray capabilities at their stadiums, and they also provide police escorts if a player needs to be transported to and from the hospital. It’s not clear why Speight wasn’t transported directly to a hospital by ambulance.
Instead, Wilton sat in the front seat of a van provided by Purdue and driven by a student. The Speights, two medical trainers, a doctor and Thai Trinh, an orthopedic sports medicine fellow at Michigan, piled into a van to be transported to the student health clinic, about two blocks from the stadium.
...
“They take us in the basement,” Bobby Speight said. “It’s very dimly lit. Halfway down the hall, there’s a (radiology) technician. Wilton is in (partial) uniform and still wearing cleats, and she asks Wilton his name. The (van driver) says he needs an X-ray. (The technician) looks at me and says, ‘I need your insurance card.’ ”
“And we waited 20 minutes for the rescue squad team,” he said. “At that point, Wilton says he has tingling in his legs and is in substantial pain. The EMT riding in the back of the ambulance asks us if we need an IV or vital monitoring and Trinh replied, ‘No, but we need him stable and immobile. This is a back injury.’ We stop at a light, and the Michigan doctor asks how long is it going to take, and (the EMT) said 30 to 45 minutes on game day.
“Our doctor asked him, ‘Couldn’t we please turn on the siren and make better time?’ And (the rescue squad member) said, ‘Don’t you get smart with me. You said this is a non-vital trip.’ Our doctor said, ‘I don’t care what I told you, this boy has tingling in his legs. Turn the siren on and go.’
October 27th, 2017 at 9:48 AM ^
October 27th, 2017 at 1:33 AM ^
October 27th, 2017 at 4:18 AM ^
October 27th, 2017 at 4:59 AM ^
This is unbelievable if you have not spent any time in Indiana. If you are outside of Indianapolis, you are in trouble!
October 27th, 2017 at 5:50 AM ^
I've been to the non-Indianapolis parts of Indiana and I firmly ranked it as the 2nd worst state behind Ohio.
October 27th, 2017 at 9:44 AM ^
'Nuff said.
October 27th, 2017 at 6:21 PM ^
October 27th, 2017 at 6:04 AM ^
You do know they have a big drum, right?
I'd have probably laughed if someone had suggested this was possible at a B1G University in 2017. Shameful just doesn't even begin to cover this.
October 27th, 2017 at 8:03 AM ^
The unbelievable part is that no other player, player's parents or coach (of Purdue or an opponent) has ever called this out. This does include former Michign players/ coaches.
Why help Purdue cover up?
October 27th, 2017 at 8:33 AM ^
As much as we hate OSU I am very confident they would give an injured Michigan player first class care and vise-versa. Purdue looks like a second rate school pulling a stunt like this, it's pathetic.
October 27th, 2017 at 11:04 AM ^
October 27th, 2017 at 12:20 PM ^
OSU doesn't scrimp on their facilities. They were there for Tommy Armstrong, and I am sure that an injured Michigan player would get first class care.
We'd have to listen to a bunch of Buckeyes telling us how awesome the care was, of course. but it would be there.
October 27th, 2017 at 1:35 PM ^
Also, Michigan State praised UM for the care of the kid who got a broken hip in the punt fiasco game.
October 27th, 2017 at 4:00 PM ^
Anecdote on that, and I won't say in full detaul the source for HIPAA reasons (not me, but just being overly cautious people here), apparently the MSU player had no recollection of what happened and had to be told.
October 27th, 2017 at 8:42 AM ^
October 27th, 2017 at 9:14 AM ^
October 27th, 2017 at 9:14 AM ^
October 27th, 2017 at 9:23 AM ^
should have been immobilized and put on a stretcher with his head strapped down on the field and taken by ambulance to the hospital, not sure how this was not done. i thought every football sporting event, high school, college, pro, were required to have an ambulance at games.
October 27th, 2017 at 9:30 AM ^
October 27th, 2017 at 9:45 AM ^
Yeah, it's pretty atrocious that they apparently didn't even have these resources available, it sounds like.
October 27th, 2017 at 10:51 AM ^
That's what I'm wondering-- it's hard to believe there was no way to immobilize him, so what might have the trainers seen at first (or not seen) that they would let him leave the field under his own power?
October 27th, 2017 at 12:09 PM ^
My guess is that he was able to move around somewhat (probably adrenaline), and the staff isn't necessarily going to immobilize everyone who takes a big hit, even in the neck region. But when you start hearing a guy saying he's got tingling in his extremeties and you are in a van with a student driver, the lack of basic medical facilities magnifies the issues. I don't blame anyone for him getting off the field or if, say, Purdue didn't have a full x-ray setup at the stadium; it's bad because you have the money, but I can get not having all the equipment next door in the abstract sense. But then, you should have a dedicated ambulance and medical staff to get injured players to and from a nearby medical facility, not a van to a student medical building 30+ minutes away in traffic.
October 27th, 2017 at 9:35 AM ^
medical care. And that's saying something considering how our hospitals are always overloaded.
October 27th, 2017 at 12:29 PM ^
some 5 star medical facilities and is a world leader in research as well.
You're from China, right? Can you tell us if most Chinese citizens have access to these facilities? It would be interesting to hear about.
October 29th, 2017 at 1:06 AM ^
have readily accessible health care. Most five star medical facilities are overloaded (duh!), but we do have free healthcare (in the form of insurance) and checkups barring major illnesses. Basically, China's healthcare is focused more on prevention.
For treatment of major illnesses, it costs somewhere between 1000 RMB ~ 2000 RMB (150 ~ 300 USD) including a two week stay in the ICU. The diagnosis capacities of pretty much all facilities in China are not bad. For example, my great-grandfather was able to receive a timely CT scan and X-Ray that detected a stroke and the doctors were able to stabilize it at a 4th-tier city (5 tiers in total). However, MRI scans cost a few hundred RMB and require better facilities.
It takes a few days to get a surgical operation at a five-star medical facility in China from what I've heard barring emergencies.
October 27th, 2017 at 9:42 AM ^
October 27th, 2017 at 3:40 PM ^
wooda treated him better?
Maybe i resemble that remark. And, I resent that!
October 27th, 2017 at 10:29 AM ^
October 27th, 2017 at 8:53 PM ^
October 27th, 2017 at 11:30 AM ^
Good lord. I'm sure the Big Ten will conduct a thorough investigation and get to the bottom of this!
October 27th, 2017 at 12:16 PM ^
October 27th, 2017 at 12:26 PM ^
So now that we know more about Purdue's excuses:
1) The medical facility "two blocks away" takes 30-45 minutes to get to.
2) It's student health services, where Purdue students say they wouldn't take their dog ifhe had a potentally serious medical problem.
3) The tour of the facilities didn't include locked portions of the locker room, because the staffer didn't have a key.
4) We were told we'd get fans, but one of the two of them didn't work. (The locker room countdown clock also didn't work).
The main excuse seems to be that we should have known that Purdue's facilities are garbage, and brought our own fans, air conditioner, bathrooms, countdown clock, and back brace. Supposedly there's air conditioning, but only if you specifically ask, and there's an ambulance on site, but only if you explicitly ask. Maybe we should have asked not to have the late hit - that might have been available too.
October 27th, 2017 at 3:36 PM ^
I am just amazed such things weren't addressed eons ago by the NCAA, or at least the Big 10, if for no other reason--liability.
I know its too much to ask some schools to act responsibly...potato salad.
October 27th, 2017 at 5:22 PM ^
appears to be the equivalent of falling seriously ill on a major holiday i.e. your chances of receiving proper treatment in a timely manner are significantly reduced.
I get the sense that the problem at Purdue is that they don't really want to spend money on football and so you could imagine that the AD has to argue persistently to justify the needs of the Purdue football program. In that situation it might be a case of "Visiting Teams Keep Going. We can't take care of our own." where no-one will say "Hey what about the visiting team?" because if you can barely get yourself to consider adequate facilities for your own guys then why would you give a lick about the visiting team.