A veteran registered nurse in need of back surgery said Honolulu paramedics did not follow common sense for her injuries when they allegedly sat her upright in her husband’s truck and had him drive to the hospital on his own.
Stella Ching, 36, of Kapolei was scheduled to be discharged Monday night from the Queen’s Medical Center after surgery that required rods and screws to realign her spine and repair a broken vertebra.
Ching now faces months of physical therapy before she can hope to return to work as a labor and delivery nurse at Kapiolani Medical Center for Women & Children, where she has worked for the past six years.
From her hospital bed at the Queen’s spine center Monday, Ching struggled to understand the treatment she received by city paramedics July 7 after she injured her back while jumping on the family’s backyard trampoline with her 9-year-old daughter.
The paramedics who responded to a 911 call did not put Ching on a back board or use a neck collar, Ching said. Instead, they offered hot and cold packs and sat her upright in a wheelchair before placing her in the passenger seat of her husband’s 2011 Nissan Titan truck.
"It was so, like, laid back and casual," Ching said. "At that point I was just, ‘Help me.’"
Shayne Enright, spokeswoman for the Honolulu Emergency Services Department, said Ching’s case is under review.
"The care of our patients is the number one concern of the Honolulu Emergency Medical Services," Enright wrote in an email to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. "Any allegations regarding patient care are taken very seriously and we are currently conducting a medical review of the case. However due to an ongoing investigation and patient privacy policies, Honolulu Emergency Medical Services is unable to comment further on this case."
Ching’s husband, Dustin, 37, a C-17 Globemaster III cargo jet crew chief with the Hawaii Air National Guard, continued to seethe Monday.
He said the paramedics were "totally unprofessional" and seemed more interested in checking out the backyard trampoline than properly caring for his wife.
"I didn’t tell them she was a nurse, but it shouldn’t matter," he said. "If it was their family member, would you have given them the same treatment?"
The family’s trampoline is surrounded by a safety net, and Stella Ching had been jumping with their daughter, Makenna, when she landed awkwardly while trying to bounce off of her back.
"I felt pain immediately," Ching said.
Dustin Ching and their 12-year-old son, Dallas, drove up moments later, and her husband called 911.
The paramedics sat Stella Ching up in "this little wheelchair" they used to take her out front, he said. After throwing together items for the hospital, Dustin Ching said, he was stunned when he walked outside to see his wife sitting upright in his truck instead of in a proper emergency vehicle.
"They had me sign this electronic form and said, ‘You can take her,’" he said.
When they arrived at Queen’s West Oahu, he said, emergency room workers chided him for "not calling 911" and said he could have made her injuries worse by driving her himself.
"People were questioning me — why didn’t I call 911?" he said. "They didn’t believe me. I had to show them my phone. I got the impression that they felt I was making up a story."
A CT scan showed that Stella Ching had compressed the 10th, 11th and 12th vertebrae and that one piece of vertebra had clearly broken off.
"I could see the look of concern on the nurses’ faces," her husband said. "I don’t have a trained eye, but it was clearly a broken spine. They said her back could have been fractured during transport."
Ching was immediately transferred to the Queen’s Medical Center downtown, where she underwent surgery the next day.
Her Queen’s surgeon did not immediately respond to a request for comment on her injuries.
On a scale of 1 to 10, she said her pain has been as high as a 9 since the accident.
"I’m on a lot of medications now," she said.
Once back home in Kapolei, she will face months of recovery after learning how to walk with a back brace.
"It’s going to be a rocky road," Dustin Ching said.
At the same time, they’re worried about their younger child, who saw her mother get hurt.
"It’s affecting my daughter a little more," he said, "because she was there."
