Southmead Hospital 2018-01-05 Person 5 5 0

Ended up in A and E after being hurt by a large animal on the rampage. I was thrown in the air, somersaulted over and landed on my head and twisted at an odd angle on to my neck. I was knocked out briefly and when I came to my friend was calling an ambulance, she was told they were busy and there would be a long wait, so we said leave it and we'll make our own way to Southmead Hospital. I didn't want to be a bother so we went to the out of hours at Cossham instead. I was still headachy, vomiting, seeing stars and feeling very nauseous and dizzy as well as abdominal pain where I'd been rammed with force (a lovely large bruise was forming by this time) So the out of hours doctor wrote a letter for Southmead A and E basically telling them what injuries and symptoms I had (we looked!) and told us we should go to the hospital. So we did. I gave the letter to the receptionist at Southmead and we were told to take a seat. I was still vomiting so hoped we'd be seen quickly because I really felt poorly. We sat there for 4 hours watching people coming in behind us and being seen before us and then going home. My friend asked the receptionist when they thought we'd be seen and we were told they didn't know. About half an hour later a nurse called us in to a room and she seemed rather annoyed we were there, she didn't make eye contact with me, like i said she seemed cross with me and didn't seem concerned about my symptoms after she read the letter, didn't do any examination but gave me some paracetamol and asked me to wait outside. We waited for another 3 hours, thankfully I'd stopped vomiting in this time and the paracetamol had helped with the headache. My friend spoke to the receptionist again and they said they didn't know how much longer we would have to wait, there were people still coming in behind us and going straight through to see a doctor (we saw his badge when he came out) so we weren't really sure why we were sitting there at all. My friend had to go to work in a few hours so we left and she dropped me home before going home herself and it was literally 5 am at this point. I was quite sore and sick for a little while but I kept taking Ibuprofen and paracetamol and I googled about dealing with the neck and abdominal pain which I did have for a long time but I don't really notice it now. I just wanted to apologise to the staff in A and E because we were only there because the Cossham out of hours doctor told us to go. I'm sorry we made such nuisances of ourselves and caused an inconvenience. I know you all work really hard and do an amazing job under such stress and it really didn't help you having one more person you'd rather not have to deal with. I think I won't be so quick to come to Southmead A and E next time something happens. I am quite embarrassed to be honest so glad this is anonymous, but I did feel like I should apologise.