A B.C. man who split his scalp open in an accident is sharing his hospital horror story.
A 35-pound piece of motorcycle engine fell on Darcy Bailey while he was cleaning his workshop, and the steel left him with a bloody, two-inch gash.
"It didn't knock me right out... but that's as close to being unconscious as I'd ever been in 44 years,” said Bailey.
He made his way to the emergency room at Fort St. John Hospital and checked in at the nursing station – and then he waited. And waited.
More than eight hours later, he gave up, telling a nurse that he would return in the morning.
When he went back the next day, medical staff told him he had waited too long, and they wouldn’t be able to close the gash on his head.
Eleven days after he walked out of the emergency room in Fort St. John, Bailey and his wife visited relatives in Abbotsford. Concerned with how the wound was healing, family convinced him to go see a doctor – who promptly stitched up the gash.
"Twelve staples right in my head. Closed the wound right then and there. I was in and out of there in less than two hours,” Bailey said about his experience at Abbotsford Regional Hospital.
Concerned with this discrepancy, Bailey filed a complaint with Northern Health about the treatment he received in Fort St John.
“We cannot provide information about specific patients or cases. We take all patient complaints seriously as our first priority is ensuring the safety and well-being of patients,” Northern Health told CTV News in a statement.
Bailey says he has recovered from his injury – but his faith in the B.C. medical system has not.
"I'm disappointed with the level of professionalism that they greeted that whole scene with,” said Bailey. “I certainly feel that I could have been treated differently."
