Is it standard procedure in emergency rooms to suspect a spouse of abuse?

[Bob Blaylock]

This occurred more than two years ago, and once it was over, I didn't think much more of it. But for some reason, it just now popped into my head, and makes me wonder…

In September of 2019, I broke my leg.

A few months later, in November, I suddenly developed some severe muscle spasms in the other leg. Somehow, the two things are connected, but the mechanism is unclear to me. But that's not what this post is about.

The severe muscle spasms were extremely painful and debilitating, more so, in fact, than my broken and patched-together other leg was by this point. As a result, my wife took me to the nearest emergency room to seek treatment.

Now, on being admitted to the emergency room, right away, they made a point of separating me from my wife, and with my wife not present, I was questioned, with a very obvious purpose of determining whether or not my wife might have been physically, violently abusing me. She hadn't of course, and it didn't take very long for them to be satisfied that she hadn't.

Other than just a very general case of my wife having brought me in for one thing, while I was in a condition of having recently suffered a serious other injury, neither my wife nor I can think of any reason why they should have suspected her of abusing me.

So, I was wondering, is this just standard procedure, whenever a patient is brought in to an emergency room by a spouse, to question the patient in order to rule out spousal abuse?

 

[Meister]

Certain injuries are often associated with spousal abuse. Yeah, I would think it's pretty common.

 

[Donald H]

This occurred more than two years ago, and once it was over, I didn't think much more of it. But for some reason, it just now popped into my head, and makes me wonder…

In September of 2019, I broke my leg.

A few months later, in November, I suddenly developed some severe muscle spasms in the other leg. Somehow, the two things are connected, but the mechanism is unclear to me. But that's not what this post is about.

The severe muscle spasms were extremely painful and debilitating, more so, in fact, than my broken and patched-together other leg was by this point. As a result, my wife took me to the nearest emergency room to seek treatment.

Now, on being admitted to the emergency room, right away, they made a point of separating me from my wife, and with my wife not present, I was questioned, with a very obvious purpose of determining whether or not my wife might have been physically, violently abusing me. She hadn't of course, and it didn't take very long for them to be satisfied that she hadn't.

Other than just a very general case of my wife having brought me in for one thing, while I was in a condition of having recently suffered a serious other injury, neither my wife nor I can think of any reason why they should have suspected her of abusing me.

So, I was wondering, is this just standard procedure, whenever a patient is brought in to an emergency room by a spouse, to question the patient in order to rule out spousal abuse?

The leg problem probably the reason for the questioning. What elso could it have been with you and your wife's demeanour, if anything?

 

[Gabe Lackmann]

This occurred more than two years ago, and once it was over, I didn't think much more of it. But for some reason, it just now popped into my head, and makes me wonder…

In September of 2019, I broke my leg.

A few months later, in November, I suddenly developed some severe muscle spasms in the other leg. Somehow, the two things are connected, but the mechanism is unclear to me. But that's not what this post is about.

The severe muscle spasms were extremely painful and debilitating, more so, in fact, than my broken and patched-together other leg was by this point. As a result, my wife took me to the nearest emergency room to seek treatment.

Now, on being admitted to the emergency room, right away, they made a point of separating me from my wife, and with my wife not present, I was questioned, with a very obvious purpose of determining whether or not my wife might have been physically, violently abusing me. She hadn't of course, and it didn't take very long for them to be satisfied that she hadn't.

Other than just a very general case of my wife having brought me in for one thing, while I was in a condition of having recently suffered a serious other injury, neither my wife nor I can think of any reason why they should have suspected her of abusing me.

So, I was wondering, is this just standard procedure, whenever a patient is brought in to an emergency room by a spouse, to question the patient in order to rule out spousal abuse?

In short...yes.

Especially when a person dies under questionable circumstance, the spouse is always the primary suspect.

 

[toobfreak]

Is it standard procedure in emergency rooms​

Yes, unfortunately Bob, the government has taken over the medical industry, and like NASA now being an arm of muslim outreach, hospitals now consider it as much their job fixing your leg as to first crawl up your ass and make your personal life part of THEIR business like you were a piece of meat to be managed.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

The leg problem probably the reason for the questioning. What elso [sic] could it have been with you and your wife's demeanour [sic], if anything?

I don't know.

The left leg was broken, because a couple months earlier, a stack of drywall had fallen on it at work, and snapped both the tibia and fibula. I suppose that kind of injury could be caused by spousal abuse, but it was not at all difficult to establish how it happened in my case, and that my wife was nowhere nearby when it happened, so no way she could have had any part in causing it.

The muscle spasms remain rather mysterious to me. I cannot say with absolute certainty that they have anything to do with the broken leg, but I never had any such issues before I broke my leg. Various doctors have seemed not to consider it unusual for such muscle spasms to occur in someone who's had the kind of injury I had, but none have been able to help me understand how a pair of broken bones in one leg can lead to muscle spasms in parts of the body away from the fractures. And I have a very difficult time understanding why anyone would suspect my wife of having had any part in causing that issue.

 

[1srelluc]

LOL....It's a good thing the wife did not have to go to the hospital then.....My 2-year old G-Grandson bonked my wife upside the head with a plastic dinosaur and it left a heck of a bruise. Maybe I should get him wrote-up for elder abuse.

 

[sparky]

So, I was wondering, is this just standard procedure, whenever a patient is brought in to an emergency room by a spouse, to question the patient in order to rule out spousal abuse?

Yes, and it's gotten much worse over the years, especially applicable to any child related trauma Bob

~S~

 

[Donald H]

I don't know.

The left leg was broken, because a couple months earlier, a stack of drywall had fallen on it at work, and snapped both the tibia and fibula. I suppose that kind of injury could be caused by spousal abuse, but it was not at all difficult to establish how it happened in my case, and that my wife was nowhere nearby when it happened, so no way she could have had any part in causing it.

The muscle spasms remain rather mysterious to me. I cannot say with absolute certainty that they have anything to do with the broken leg, but I never had any such issues before I broke my leg. Various doctors have seemed not to consider it unusual for such muscle spasms to occur in someone who's had the kind of injury I had, but none have been able to help me understand how a pair of broken bones in one leg can lead to muscle spasms in parts of the body away from the fractures. And I have a very difficult time understanding why anyone would suspect my wife of having had any part in causing that issue.

I meant to say, the leg problem probably wasn't the reason for the questioning, as you suspect it shouldn't have been.
What else about your demeanour or appearance, or your wife's, would cause them to question you?

Were you drinking, on drugs, acting in some other strange way?

I think your behaviour on answering those questions may give us a clue, judging on your past behaviour with me.

That's not to suggest it was all your fault that we couldn't converse normally. That remains to be discovered.

 

[OhPleaseJustQuit]

Yes, even when there is no spouse, they still ask. I once cut my hand pretty seriously on a broken dish in the kitchen sink. I was totally single at the time. While in the ER getting a ton of stitches, I was asked how it happened and very specifically asked if someone had done this to me.

 

[Donald H]

Yes, even when there is no spouse, they still ask. I once cut my hand pretty seriously on a broken dish in the kitchen sink. I was totally single at the time. While in the ER getting a ton of stitches, I was asked how it happened and very specifically asked if someone had done this to me.

That seems to me to not be usual practice in Canada. I've never been asked the question.

Doe appearance alone motivate hospital staff to ask the question?
Or is there something unusual happening that's not happening in Canada?

 

[Markle]

My only thought is that I much prefer that the hospital, paramedics, police, or whoever, err on the side of suspicion rather than the other way around.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

I meant to say, the leg problem probably wasn't the reason for the questioning, as you suspect it shouldn't have been.
What else about your demeanour [sic] or appearance, or your wife's, would cause them to question you?

Were you drinking, on drugs, acting in some other strange way?

Well, I was in a lot of pain, and my right leg was twitching, visibly. All this on top of the effects of my left leg having been broken, and having surgery, a couple months earlier. I'm sure that had to have some effect on my demeanor.

And my wife was very worried.

I think it's a pretty fair assumption that neither of us was in a usual, calm, state of mind.

Neither of us ever uses any recreational drugs, including alcohol. I did, at the time, have an active prescription for oxycodone, and had taken a small dose thereof, but it didn't seem to help with the pain that the muscle spams were causing. But other than that, and possibly some ibuprofen, no drugs.

 

[eagle1462010]

After injuries leg cramps can happen later on as your muscles get back where they were before. Tend to get stretched a bit when damaged.

I would trolled the nurses had they asked me. Yup. Me and my wife were getting it on and im here for the worst leg cramp in my life from it.

 

[BULLDOG]

Yes, and it's gotten much worse over the years, especially applicable to any child related trauma Bob

~S~

Take a kid to the emergency room, and you're going to be questioned. It might be a little embarrassing for them to think there is a chance you might have hurt the kid, but considering what they have seen, I would rather they question everybody rather than take a chance of missing signs of abuse.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

After injuries leg cramps can happen later on as your muscles get back where they were before. Tend to get stretched a bit when damaged.

The closest I can come to making sense of it is to assume that as a result of one leg being damaged, and my ability to walk, and my pattern of walking being altered, that it has somehow thrown my whole body out of whack. I have, since event of November 2019, remained subject to random muscle spasms and twitches—mostly in my legs, and especially the right leg (which is not the leg that was broken), but they seem to be able to occur anywhere in my body. They've mostly been fairly mild. I've only had one other instance in which I had spasms bad enough to be debilitating, and that was some time in 2021. I had to leave work that day, because early in my shift, I was having bad spasms, almost as bad as the November 2019 spasms, and they continued for about two and a half days. Again, this was in my right leg and hip area. The spasms were forceful enough that I think they sprained the largest muscle in the area, which remained sore for quite some time afterward. Almost literally, an internally-created, ass-kicking.

I'm hoping that this is something that I'll eventually recover from. The original, main injury, is long over. More than a year ago, my orthopedist told me that between the degree to which my tibia had healed by then, and the titanium rod holding it together, that the bone should, at that point, be stronger than it was before I broke it. And that was with a fair amount of healing yet to happen. I think that nearly all that remains wrong with me, to this point, are the effects of having been too idle for too much of the past two and a half years, and that as I continue to go about normal life and normal activity, that my body will eventually sort most of itself out again.

 

[evenflow1969]

I don't know.

The left leg was broken, because a couple months earlier, a stack of drywall had fallen on it at work, and snapped both the tibia and fibula. I suppose that kind of injury could be caused by spousal abuse, but it was not at all difficult to establish how it happened in my case, and that my wife was nowhere nearby when it happened, so no way she could have had any part in causing it.

The muscle spasms remain rather mysterious to me. I cannot say with absolute certainty that they have anything to do with the broken leg, but I never had any such issues before I broke my leg. Various doctors have seemed not to consider it unusual for such muscle spasms to occur in someone who's had the kind of injury I had, but none have been able to help me understand how a pair of broken bones in one leg can lead to muscle spasms in parts of the body away from the fractures. And I have a very difficult time understanding why anyone would suspect my wife of having had any part in causing that issue.

Because the broken leg changed the mechanics of how you got around. Now the other leg has to do most of the work that was split between the two legs before. Not only is the good leg doing much more work but doing that work from angles it should not be doing the work from.

 

[toobfreak]

Because the broken leg changed the mechanics of how you got around. Now the other leg has to do most of the work that was split between the two legs before. Not only is the good leg doing much more work but doing that work from angles it should not be doing the work from.

More than that. It affected the chi in his body and put the flow of energy out of balance because his doctors only know western medicine and don't recognize nor treat the subtle body.

 

[WelfareQueen]

This occurred more than two years ago, and once it was over, I didn't think much more of it. But for some reason, it just now popped into my head, and makes me wonder…

In September of 2019, I broke my leg.

A few months later, in November, I suddenly developed some severe muscle spasms in the other leg. Somehow, the two things are connected, but the mechanism is unclear to me. But that's not what this post is about.

The severe muscle spasms were extremely painful and debilitating, more so, in fact, than my broken and patched-together other leg was by this point. As a result, my wife took me to the nearest emergency room to seek treatment.

Now, on being admitted to the emergency room, right away, they made a point of separating me from my wife, and with my wife not present, I was questioned, with a very obvious purpose of determining whether or not my wife might have been physically, violently abusing me. She hadn't of course, and it didn't take very long for them to be satisfied that she hadn't.

Other than just a very general case of my wife having brought me in for one thing, while I was in a condition of having recently suffered a serious other injury, neither my wife nor I can think of any reason why they should have suspected her of abusing me.

So, I was wondering, is this just standard procedure, whenever a patient is brought in to an emergency room by a spouse, to question the patient in order to rule out spousal abuse?

I worked in a big city ER for years. Clinicians are legally mandated to report abuse. If it is suspected they have to ask.

 

[Cecilie1200]

This occurred more than two years ago, and once it was over, I didn't think much more of it. But for some reason, it just now popped into my head, and makes me wonder…

In September of 2019, I broke my leg.

A few months later, in November, I suddenly developed some severe muscle spasms in the other leg. Somehow, the two things are connected, but the mechanism is unclear to me. But that's not what this post is about.

The severe muscle spasms were extremely painful and debilitating, more so, in fact, than my broken and patched-together other leg was by this point. As a result, my wife took me to the nearest emergency room to seek treatment.

Now, on being admitted to the emergency room, right away, they made a point of separating me from my wife, and with my wife not present, I was questioned, with a very obvious purpose of determining whether or not my wife might have been physically, violently abusing me. She hadn't of course, and it didn't take very long for them to be satisfied that she hadn't.

Other than just a very general case of my wife having brought me in for one thing, while I was in a condition of having recently suffered a serious other injury, neither my wife nor I can think of any reason why they should have suspected her of abusing me.

So, I was wondering, is this just standard procedure, whenever a patient is brought in to an emergency room by a spouse, to question the patient in order to rule out spousal abuse?

Yup.

It's not so much that they're assuming spousal abuse. It's that they're trying to offer a safe space for people who ARE experiencing spousal abuse to ask for help, if they need to.

In fact, when I go to the ER/urgent care by myself, they routinely ask about it, particularly if whatever I'm there about could possibly be the result of abuse. Not sure if they do that to men who come in on their own, but I'm guessing it's part of the standard battery of questions.