N.B. woman says she was ‘minutes from death’ after 14-hour ER wait

A woman who says she waited more than 14 hours in a Moncton emergency room and almost died is calling for change to the province’s health-care system.

A woman who says she spent more than 14 hours in a Moncton, N.B., emergency room is calling for change to the province’s health-care system, alleging she almost died waiting.

Bianca Gallant of Memramcook, N.B., says she still doesn’t know what caused the internal bleeding that made her call 911 on Nov. 18. She had sustained a fall from her horse about two weeks earlier, but doesn’t know if that’s what caused the injury.

That morning, an ambulance took Gallant – who was suffering from severe abdominal pain – to the Dr. Georges-L.-Dumont University Hospital Centre. She was triaged and had her vitals taken before settling in for what turned out to be a long wait in the emergency room.

“I sat there quietly for about 14 hours before I couldn’t breathe and started going into medical distress,” Gallant, 29, told Global News.

“My lungs didn’t want to expand anymore, and obviously, when that happens, you go into panic mode.”

She said she told the triage nurse she couldn’t breathe and needed to see a doctor, but was told she would have to keep waiting.

“(The nurse) didn’t even come over to see if I was OK, he didn’t check my vitals, he just told me I needed to calm down,” Gallant alleged.

That’s when an ER doctor noticed she was in distress and came to help, she said. There were no more ER beds available, so she was taken to another room, where she began “vomiting uncontrollably.”