We don’t want to bring up any bad memories for you, but for today’s poll, we’re curious to learn if you or a partner have ever needed emergency medical care while RVing.
If you’re comfortable sharing the story after you vote, please do so in the comments. This can be a big concern for RVers who are constantly traveling, sometimes far from the nearest city or town!
My wife’s tennis shoe caught the cord of our electric blanket. She went down face first, blood everywhere and a broken nose and two black eyes. Our snowbird neighbors were retired paramedics that took good take of her till she settled down, then off to the hospital we went. My dad had a massive heart attack in Fl in the eighties, we had to fly him home, my brother flew to Florida and drove his rig home. My wife & I have carried medical insurance since we started RV travel 12 years ago because of what happened to dad. You never know what can happen while traveling.
I’ve never had a personal medical emergency during travel, but as a family physician, I have dealt with many, both in this country and in international expedition work. Reading the prior notes, I have one suggestion for all of us; make sure you have some form of evacuation insurance. Hopefully most of us have medical insurance for care at medical facilities in our home country. If you are traveling internationally, verify before you need it that you have coverage internationally (Medicare does not cover). However, that medical insurance will usually only cover you for care received at the medical facility. That may be enough, but if you need to be evacuated to higher level care, especially internationally, medical insurance may not cover that transportation. Internationally that can quickly become prohibitively expensive ($50,000-100.000, prepaid). Pure evacuation insurance is very inexpensive; not having to solve the problem in case of sudden need is invaluable.
Great advice! Thanks, Dr. P. Mind if I use that as a Quick Tip in one of our newsletters, so more folks see and benefit from it? (BTW – I hope to see you at an RV show again sometime.) Have a good night. 🙂 –Diane
We were at an Indian casino RV park and my husband had just got done playing golf. When he got back he said he was cold (105 degrees outside) and started shaking. I told him to get a blanket and then his whole body started to shake and he went down. The Indian ambulance took him to the hospital and he had a urinary tract infection (no prior symptoms) that caused sepsis. The doctors weren’t sure he’d make it thru the night. The hospital ended up being one of the top teaching hospitals in the nation. After being in their ICU for 4 days, we came home. That was 6 years ago.
Neither my wife nor I ever have needed emergency medical assistance. However, while traveling in Alaska my wife’s father did need emergency medical assistance. Unfortunately, we also discovered by virtue of that event that Good Sam’s travel assist medical insurance is useless. Thankfully, all was well with my father-in-law and we canceled all our Good Sam coverages other than our basic membership — the campground discounts justify keeping it.
Early in my RV life, I purchased a Lifetime Membership in MASA (Medical Airlift Service). Happily, I’ve never needed to use it but, it’s nice to know I’m covered.
My husband became ill and passed away while we were camping. Our camping neighbors and the campground staff were very kind and most helpful.
So very sorry. Can’t imagine. There are kind people everywhere. Glad they were there for you. Good bless.
Just a week ago I had a accident while riding my bike…should have waited a day to acclimated to the heights and warm weather here in Hill City, SD…but after a long 6 day drive from our home state of ME, we were anxious to get out for some exercise…I ended up passing out while riding the Mickelson bike trail and crashed on the side of the trail..🤷🏻♀️ Shattered my clavicle so needing surgery tomorrow …I must say I have had very good care here in the black hills…we won’t ever forget our visit to SD.. it’s beautiful though!!!😎😁
I was bit by a feral cat when trying to rescue my cat from it. This was late in the evening. Hubby had to drive me to emergency room in an unfamiliar town. Ended up having many rabies shots because the feral cat had run away. Not fun.
Last year bad allergies with nasty cough~ went to drive in clinic. Not Covid, got meds and fine. This year to a Walk in Clinic, UTI~ given meds. Hope never to have a big problem…
Many years ago Sandy had an emergency issue with her left eye when we were camped at Diamond Lake RV Resort visiting friends from Owensboro, KY. Then a year or two after that Sandy had an emergency stomach issue in Bradenton, FL while we were camped there visiting friends. Gladly both situations were resolved with meds and she recovered fine. We were in large communities with sufficient emergency facilities to quickly handle our problems. I’m sure there are others that had higher emergency situations in remote places that put them in much more dire situations. Hope everything worked out ok. Stay safe, Stay well
After nice lunch at restaurant in the Keys, husband didn’t feel right. He had one glass of wine with lunch. Gets up and starts to leave, drops to the ground. In all my years, never been around someone have something an event like that. The server was great. She calmed me down😬. Staff called 911. Paramedics near by. Blood pressure very low. Followed ambulance to hospital. Got to go home later that evening when everything stabilized back to normal. Next day he tells me he thought he was taking an Advil or whatever & took a muscle relaxer (rarely uses). (Wine + muscle relaxer…bad). How did that happen? Because he always has a bottle with different pills so doesn’t have to carry each bottle! Told him to take the muscle relaxer out and keep in the prescription bottle and stop mixing pills. Men!
Thankfully, we’ve never had any issues
Stopped in Van Horn TX to get the coach inspected. Wife fell and broke hip in the parking lot. After visit to Van Horn Emergency she was transported to El Paso for surgery and recovery. I hitched the car back to the coach and followed. Spent that night in the Hospital parking lot. Spent the ensuing recovery time in a campground nearby.
Two years later she fell out of the coach trying to tell me the timer had gone off as I grilled. She has recovered mostly and we continue to travel. We were moochdocking in our son’s yard when that happened. Stayed there for the recovery and rehab. Medicare and our Supplemental insurance covered everything except the deductible again.
Medical “emergency”. Just a kidney stone, mild at that, I had my wife take me to the hospital at 11:00 pm.
In 2009 I was in Alberta where I took a tour on the Athabasca Glacier. While out on the ice, a puff of wind blew something into my eye and it got under my contact lens, scratching the cornea. The next morning I had a huge, puffy eye! The campground host suggested that I go to the emergency room. Thankfully, they found that an ophthalmologist across the parking lot from the hospital had an opening for me. That incident left me with a viral infection in my eye (courtesy of the chicken pox virus), which I’m still dealing with. I really appreciated all those Canadian people who helped me!
Twice I have been to ER. Once I fell and broke foot. That was hard. Then most recent I had pain come up my leg that progressed very fast. Never found out why but painful for awhile. Scary when in a new place.
Once while hosting at a state park. My husband and I stopped to pick up a beer can that someone had tossed out. He was standing on a sloped bank and lost his balance and rolled down the embankment about 20 feet before stopping. The park rangers stopped and wouldn’t let him try to get up, but called an ambulance to take him to the hospital. Fortunately, nothing was broken,just bruised and sore a few days.
Yes indeed! We are seasonal campers in Turkey Point, Ontario. First time was when I had a full blown Grand Mal seizure (never had one before and never again). Last thing I remember was starting the SUV. I was really lucky, if it had happened a couple minutes (or even seconds) later it could well have been disastrous or caused fatal injuries driving out of the campground or on the road. As it was, the only damage was a bust radiator (I rammed the SUV into the trailers deck)
Second incident was just a month or so ago. I was building a firepit using a big truck rim and purpose made bricks for the surround. There were a couple of tabs welded onto the rim which were hindering the fit I wanted. So, genius here starts using a heavy, splitting hatchet as a hammer (on the backside obviously). Was just about finished the second tab when the hatchet glanced off the tab straight onto my lower shin. 4 stitches later all was good (I finished the job before heading to the ER 🙂
Yes. My husband. Story way to long to tell here….lol but he survived
Yes, while going through Mississippi stopped for the night in Sams club parking lot my husband had a heart attack. medics got there fast and to the hospital that was close by.