FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — When Delray Beach paramedics arrived at the home of a 68-year-old woman who had fallen and hit a wall, Capt. Dan Waldrep noticed a giant bump on her head. The woman told him she was on blood thinners.
His immediate reaction was to take her to the hospital, but the woman’s son resisted, fearing his mother would get exposed to the new coronavirus. “I had to fight with him to get her to go,” Waldrep said. “I knew it was in her best interest.”
Waldrep warned the woman that if she didn’t go to the hospital, the next time he’d see her, she’d be dead. That worked.
As the death toll from the new coronavirus rises in states across the country, people are living in fear — afraid to call 911 or open the door to a first responder who’s decked from head to toe in hazmat gear. Many are reluctant to go to the emergency room for fear of contracting the virus.
“There’s a lot of anxiety,” said Sean Gibson, the acting division chief of Delray Beach Fire Rescue. “People get very anxious when we show up with our masks, eye protection, with all this gear on.”
Instead, some are suffering strokes and heart attacks at home. Others are waiting until the damage from major illnesses becomes irreversible. In extreme cases, people are dying at home rather than going to the hospital to address health problems — even people with COVID-19.
John Atwater a lieutenant with the Coral Springs-Parkland Fire Department, can generally predict what he will find when he arrives at the home for an emergency call: a much sicker person than he used to encounter.
Gone are the 911 calls for the sore throat, the shoulder pain, dizziness — illnesses and maladies of moderate concern, and that’s having a startling effect on hospitals and health.
At Florida Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale, Dr. Louis Isaacson, the emergency room medical director, looks around and sees only seriously ill patients in his ER and intensive care unit.
“We are usually the safety net for the medical system,” he said. “Now we are seeing the sickest of sick, and I find myself saying over and over, ‘I wish you had come sooner.’”
In February and March, Fort Lauderdale Fire and Rescue saw more people dying before they were able to get to them, rising to 64 from 54 a year earlier.
In March alone, Fort Lauderdale paramedics reported 26 instances when a person died of heart failure before first responders could save them.
Atwater, too, often hears radio calls for emergency help being canceled because it’s too late, the person is dead. State records reflect more people are dying — but not just from coroanvirus.
Last month, 324 more people died in the tri-county area than during the month of March last year — and only one-third of them died of COVID-19, which did not show its deadly force until halfway through the month.
The change is evident in dispatch centers across the region, some which have reported calls for emergency medical care have dropped — in some cities by as much as 40%.
Dr. Randy Katz, medical director of emergency services for the city of Hollywood Fire Rescue and Memorial Regional Hospital, said the call volume to the 911 center in Hollywood has fallen about 30% during the pandemic. And by the time paramedics are called, patients tend to be much sicker — suffering severe chest or abdominal pain, he said.
“We are not seeing the calls for minor complaints that we get in normal times,” Katz said.
Emergency room doctors see the fear playing out in their hospitals.
“I’m not seeing nearly as many people coming in with symptoms of heart attack, stroke and cardiac arrest as I did just a month and a half ago,” said Celso Agner, a neuro interventionist at Broward Health Medical Center. “My assumption is that they are suffering at home.”
With elderly and others quarantining largely in isolation, it is possible no one is keeping tabs on their failing health, he said.
Broward County has the state’s highest rate of stroke per 100,000 people — 64% in 2018, compared with the state average of 41%, according to health department records. That concerns Agner, who said one stroke often sets off more. At Broward Health, 26 patients came to the Emergency Room with serious strokes in April 2019. This April only nine have come through the emergency room so far.
Doctors and hospital administrators stress that the hospital is safe.
“Residents need to know the hospital has measures in place to isolate patients with coronavirus and distance them from others,” Agner said. “There is no reason for people to be worried.”
Florida has required people to stay home and social distance. But cardiologists, neurologists and emergency room doctors say that recommendation doesn’t suggest that anyone should ignore symptoms of heart attack, stroke and cardiac arrest. Some South Florida hospitals are reporting a drop of as much as 40% in emergency room visits. This figure excludes those suffering from COVID-19 illnesses.
Dr. Brijeshwar Maini, an interventional cardiologist at Delray Medical Center, said he recently performed high-risk open-heart surgery on a patient who, had he come to the hospital sooner, could have had a simple stent put in and been released two days later. Instead, the man avoided the hospital until he badly damaged his heart muscle.
In another instance, Maini pleaded with a patient on the phone who was experiencing chest pain to come to the hospital. “But he’s afraid of getting the virus,” Maini said. “He’s still at home.”
“Even though we’re living in uncertain times, the safest place for a person not doing well is still the hospital,” Maini said.
Stress brought on by the fear of contracting the virus, joblessness, children at home and fear of the unknown is putting people at increased risk for stroke, said Dr. Brian Snelling, a neurosurgeon at Boca Raton Regional Hospital. “You would think that would lead to an increase in the number of people with strokes coming to the hospital, not a decrease.”
If people have minor stroke symptoms, they can be reversible, Snelling said. “But because of the pandemic, people think it’s a good time to ride it out at home and see what happens. Obviously, that’s a problem.”
Patients with symptoms of heart attack and stroke are not the only ones who dare not come in despite needing hospital care. Mark Sturman, of Plantation, suffered excruciating pain from kidney stones at home rather than going to the hospital.
“I was not going to take a chance of getting coronavirus,” Sturman said. “I should have gone to the hospital because the pain was outrageous.”
Even pregnant women fear becoming infected — or exposing their newborns to the virus — and are choosing to give birth at home.
Dr. Delisa Skeete Henry, an obstetrician with Broward Health, said she went for 18 years only delivering in hospitals, to delivering three home births this month, with eight more planned through June.
“These are moms who are at low risk for complications,” she said. “The fear of COVID has pushed them into delivering at home.”
Skeete Henry said even when she educates expectant moms about the risks of home birth, some believe the option is better than chancing mom or the baby getting the virus. “They are adamant in taking this opportunity to deliver at home,” she said. “It’s a different mindset.”
———
©2020 Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.)
Visit the Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) at www.sun-sentinel.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.