Helping Families Navigate the Speed Bumps of Life
Colin Schmidt was playing at a friend’s home one afternoon when his mom, Michelle, received a concerning phone message at home followed by a frantic text that read ‘9-1-1 EMERGENCY.’ Michelle recalls, “My husband Mike and I raced out of the house as fast as we could. We had no idea what to expect.”
When the couple arrived at their friend’s home, they found four-year-old Colin with a visibly broken leg and were told an ambulance was already on the way. “Colin and his buddies had been jumping down an embankment, something they’d done a hundred times before. But this time he landed the wrong way and hurt his leg really badly.”
Colin was transported to Clinton Hospital where his leg was quickly X-rayed and determined to be severely broken. “I can’t say enough about everyone in the Emergency Department. They were wonderful to Colin. They made sure that he was seen immediately so he could have something to help his pain right away, and they made us feel like he was their first priority. It made a scary situation that much easier,” said Michelle.
Clinton Hospital’s emergency staff stabilized Colin’s leg and arranged for his transfer to UMass Memorial Medical Center where he underwent a three-hour surgery the next morning. After six weeks of rest and recuperation, Colin’s mom was pleased to learn that he could begin physical therapy to regain his strength and flexibility locally at Clinton Hospital.
“Colin’s made a lot of progress. He has one more surgery to go, but you’d never know it from watching him. He’s back to being my monkey - running, jumping and climbing on everything! We’re so grateful to Clinton Hospital for helping him get there.”
“Having lived in Clinton most of my life, I’ve always taken it for granted that Clinton Hospital is here. But when something like this happens, you really appreciate how close it is and how lucky we are to have a hospital within our community.”
– Michelle Schmidt, mother of Emergency Department patient Colin Schmidt
Driving Circles around the Competition
Think of a health care system as a rotary. All of your health care needs feed into and out of one core roadway – UMass Memorial Health Care. In Colin Schmidt’s case, he took the Clinton Hospital roadway into the UMass Memorial Health Care rotary and was seamlessly transported to the UMass Memorial Medical Center exit for his surgery. Then, when it was time to complete his recovery, the Schmidts were pleased to learn that they could hop back on the rotary and return to Clinton Hospital again for Colin’s physical therapy services. Less traffic,fewer worries – that’s the advantage of a system of care.