A woman in Charleston, South Carolina, felt excruciating pain and rushed to the nearest emergency room (ER). According to her, she waited three hours for a doctor or nurse to check on her, despite her constant requests for medication.
The woman in question is Tayler Goectau, who is also known as distaaybled. She is a patient-scientist who often shares lifestyle content, some of which is focused on her intersectional disability advocacy. The clip attached above went viral, garnering 545,300 views, 26,100 likes, and close to 1,800 comments.
The South Carolina woman said she had been experiencing excruciating pain late at night. She ranked it as a 10 out of 10 on a pain scale. A follow-up clip showed her struggling to keep it together and her husband holding her while she screamed in agony.
“I’ve been like this this whole time. I have been walking as slowly as possible. Excruciating pain,” she said.
A Three-Hour Ordeal
Tayler said she arrived around 1 a.m. For three hours, she said, she sat down in the waiting room. Finally, at around 4 a.m., they took her to a room, but only after they took some blood samples and asked her for a urine sample. Tayler showed the urine cup in the room. No one had picked it up, and she added that ER staff members were “acting annoyed” when she asked for heat packs.
During this whole ordeal, no doctor or nurse came to check on her. She said, “I have pressed my call button twice and said, ‘I’m in excruciating pain. Can I please have some pain medication?‘ They said they’ll be there soon.”
“But America is the best, right?” the South Carolina woman wrote in the clip’s description.
Reactions
Tayler’s ER nightmare story sparked multiple responses, including from viewers who thought her three-hour wait wasn’t that extreme. One said, “Only 3 hrs and you’re already in a room? You’re doing better than a lot of people.” Another one commented, “Three hours is really good!“
Others questioned how she could record a TikTok at a 10 out of 10 pain level. One wrote, “Weird, I’ve never been able to record myself with 10/10 pain.” Another one added, “There is no way I could’ve set up my camera in 10/10 pain.”
Still, many pointed out that chronic pain patients such as Tayler manifest pain differently from an average individual. When asked about it, she refused to explain the source of her pain.
