A California family was forced to take a $90,000 air ambulance to a hospital just 15 minutes away after an infant with severe burns was brought to a medical center without a burn unit or standard ambulance vehicles.
In October 2022, a rice cooker fell off Antioch resident Jessica Farwell’s counter and severely burned her 6-month-old son. She panicked as his skin instantly started to bubble up, and she rushed him to a nearby hospital.
“They gave him fentanyl through his nose because he was screaming, and they said they didn’t have a burn unit,” Farwell said. “So they were calling an ambulance, but it was the end of COVID. There wasn’t going to be an ambulance for seven hours.”
Farwell asked doctors if she could drive her son to Shriners Children’s Hospital in Sacramento instead, a roughly one-hour and 20-minute drive. The doctors refused and told her they had already called a helicopter, according to ABC…