Lifeguard gets $2,600 bill after rescuing boy from surf

[TomClash]

Seventeen-year-old John Clark of Vancouver, Wash., knew what to do when he saw a boy struggling to stay afloat in the surf off the Oregon coast.

The trained pool lifeguard jumped through the breakers and heavy swells to reach the boy in the ocean, reports KOIN-TV. Clark then calmed the boy and kept him afloat until watercraft arrived to take them to shore.

. . .
An ambulance came and took the 12-year-old boy, wrapped in a towel, and Clark—who complained of a headache—to the hospital.

Clark thought it was standard procedure until a few weeks later when he was shocked at the bill from the hospital.

The emergency room bill came to $449. The physician's bill was $227. The 15-mile ride in the ambulance was $1,907. The total bill for saving a young man's life was nearly $2,600.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/lifeguard-gets-2-600-bill-rescuing-boy-surf-130832240.html

[msongs]

1. unlike our military, which gets free medical care, REAL heros have to pay their own way nt

[Nuclear Unicorn]

3. Do you want free healthcare for yourself?

[Politicalboi]

2. Why should the lifeguard pay

Doesn't this 12 year old have parents?

[RockaFowler]

4. What about the company he works for??

Don't they have worker's comp?? Isn't this a form of getting hurt on the job??

[tammywammy]

7. He wasn't on the job. n/t

[SoCalDem]

8. Exactly.. The PATIENT was the 12 yr old...not the lifeguard

So.. you call 911 when you see someone having a heart attack.. do YOU get the bill?

This story is "off" a bit..

[ryan_cats]

9. He went to the hospital too, complaining of a headache.

He went to the hospital too, complaining of a headache:


An ambulance came and took the 12-year-old boy, wrapped in a towel, and Clark—who complained of a headache—to the hospital.

Clark thought it was standard procedure until a few weeks later when he was shocked at the bill from the hospital.

[MicaelS]

5. "He and his family are making arrangements to pay the bill."

WTF is this? That is bullshit.

[Lint Head]

6. Don't you just love the 'for profit' health care system?

[Smilo]

10. Save a life

and then give your life-savings to for profit healthcare.

[Enrique]

11. this is the "Freedom" that the libs want to take away from us

we won't let them!!!!!!

[hfojvt]

12. I hope he doesn't try to spend it

a $2,600 bill is probably fake. Pretty sure the Treasury does not make that denomination.


But why would he expect to get a free ambulance ride and medical services.

Better to refuse medical care when all you have done is gone swimming in the ocean and all you have is a headache.

Because medical care is not cheap and they don't tell you what things will cost before they do them.

I just got a crown, thinking I have good dental insurance and that it would pay 78-80%. Imagine my surprise when it only paid 10% leaving me with another $675 to pay. I could have gotten an extraction for less than $200 and that would probably have been covered. Ah well, live and learn. Some lessons are expensive.

[whistler162]

13. Sounds like the ambulance comapny is trying to double dip.

The emergency room bill is in line with the two I had for emergency room visits with physicians.

[Liberal_in_LA]

14. I wonder if the ambulance split the cost between the two patients or charged both full price.

[Nay]

15. This 'journalism' is ATROCIOUS. Was the lifeguard treated for the headache in the

ambulance and/or the hospital? What was the boy treated for? Did the boy incur the same exact ambulance ride bill, or did the whole bill go to the lifeguard? Was the ER bill and doc bill just for the headache of the lifeguard, or did that include the boy, too? Or did the boy get a separate set of bills? Or were they combined? What did the parents say about all this?

If I wrote an a pathetic, jumbled, inarticulate incident report like this at my workplace, I'd be fired.

[madinmaryland]

19. The "Journalist" probably went to the Sarah Palin School of Journalism.

Hence the word salad.

[HiPointDem]

16. One of the many ways capitalism shreds the ties between human beings and instinctual reactions

to others' need.

[HughBeaumont]

17. No good deed goes unfisted.

Utterly amazing.

[Sgent]

18. The rescue'd boy's parents

owe the lifeguard for his expenses related to the rescue.

If the parents of the rescued boy have a homeowners or renter's policy, it will pay the bill.

[RebelOne]

20. That is so ridiculous.

Many years ago, my cousin and I were swimming in Miami Beach and we were caught in an undertow. She had her 3-year-old daughter on her back. They were hanging onto me and dragging me under. Fortunately, the lifeguards came to our rescue. I was OK, but when the lifeguards got her to shore, her lips were blue. But no medics or ambulance were called. She recovered shortly thereafter..