Call 911 for any life-threatening event

The weekend of Father’s Day, 2018, I was unfortunate to experience a bee sting that sent me into anaphylactic shock. This was a new experience for me in that I had been stung a week earlier and nothing other than localized redness happened.

This time, my scalp itched quite a bit and I developed hives on the upper part of my body. I did not feel ill, but made the mistake of going to one of our local urgent care clinics. Anaphylactic shock is a life-threatening event.

In my instance, the urgent care clinic I went to was staffed with inexperienced personnel that did not recognize the serious nature of my situation, although they had policies in place to deal with it appropriately (according to the physician that owns the clinic).

I was allowed to sit in the waiting room until my blood pressure dropped to a point that I became unresponsive for 20-30 seconds. It was only then that the caregiver came out. They tried to get a blood pressure, but were unable to. They called 911 and I was transported to a hospital.

The moral of the story is that if you experience any life-threatening event, do not go to an urgent care clinic, but call 911 directly! I should have been given an EpiPen injection and sent to the hospital within the first few minutes of showing up to the clinic, not been allowed to sit until something worse happened.

Wayne Taylor