Kathy Myers, Uninsured Woman, Shoots Herself In Shoulder To Get ER Treatment (VIDEO)

An unemployed Michigan woman who was unable to afford medical treatment for a searing pain in her shoulder took matters into her own hands last week, shooting herself in the shoulder in a last-ditch effort to get into the ER.

Kathy Myers, 41, said she was pushed to the brink of desperation Thursday night because she was "crazy in pain," and the local hospital emergency room would give her no more than a handful of anti-inflammatory pills.

"Pain will make you do silly, crazy things," the 41-year-old Niles, Mich., woman said in a YouTube.com interview with News 8 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. "I knew they wasn't going to do anything, again. They said if it wasn't life-threatening, no health insurance, you can't get no help."

In the video, she reenacts how she covered her right shoulder and head with two pillows before pointing her .25-caliber handgun at her own body.

"I took the gun and went 'Boom!'" she said.

Myers was treated for the gunshot wound at Lakeland Community Hospital and released a few hours later, reports ABCNews.com. She said the self-inflicted wound did not help her achieve her goal.

"It didn't take the pain away," she told News 8.

What extreme measures have you taken to cope with the recession? E-mail your stories to [e-mail].

Comments

[Bowen Man]

11:53 PM on 06/17/2010

Shooting herself in the shoulder to get help for her shoulder? Gosh, what will she do for psychiatri­c help?

[MJinCanada]

02:18 PM on 06/18/2010

Chronic pain can bring out the nuttiness in people. Especially when one feels that no one will ever help. People have tried to amputate their own body parts because of chronic pain.

[cybersense]

11:50 AM on 06/19/2010

Pain is terrible, and when you feel trapped - I am sure the desperatio­n was overwhelmi­ng.

You would think the hospital would give her samples or something. Holy cow.

[MJinCanada]

09:34 PM on 06/17/2010

I remember trying to figure out how much codeine I could take without ODing when I had an infected tooth that made my head, jaw and neck ache fiercely.

So while I think she was nuts to shoot herself, I can understand it.

[easterncharacter]

10:27 PM on 06/17/2010

Thank you, and I am sorry for your pain, hopefully you have recovered.
The conservati­ves only have compassion when they themselves are hurt. Look at those comments that say she was a drug seeker. A bit common sense would tell that if one is looking for narcotics he/she would go to the black market, easy and done, not hospital ERs

[MJinCanada]

02:29 PM on 06/18/2010

Oh, two rounds of antibiotic­s and a root canal fixed everything­.

And I agree -- street drugs or black market pharmaceut­icals are probably easier to get and cheaper than seeing a doctor. It's often the well-off folks who can afford insurance (not mentioning any names here) who get hooked on doctor-pre­scribed stuff.

[msbnmattie]

08:11 PM on 06/16/2010

kathy myers needs to go to www.clinic­alconnecti­on.com to look for shoulder surgery/sc­ar studies. I got my shoulder fixed thru a study & it was free, in fact, they paid me.

[MJinCanada]

02:32 PM on 06/18/2010

Good idea.

[cybersense]

11:57 AM on 06/19/2010

You know, it is always nice when someone goes out and finds something to actually help out.

Fanned for that one!

[StartupGeek]

03:39 PM on 06/16/2010

If she really wanted health insurance, she should have ran and got elected to congress. So she can't really complain.

[easterncharacter]

01:41 PM on 06/16/2010

To all those people trying to label her as a drug seeker without evidence (under current law, doctor-sho­pping for narcotics is illegal, and therefore you are all accusing her of being a criminal while in America everyone is innocent until conviction­), you are committing character assassinat­ion. If she suffers harm because of your flaming, you will have blood on your hands

[GlenRast]

03:44 PM on 06/17/2010

And all those people ranting about her lack of health care are working with exactly the same lack of info. So what makes your rant any more credible?

Here's some FACTS

She was evaluated by a doctor.
She CLAIMS the doctor told her she couldn't receive treatment.­..No proof
She CLAIMS she was injured...­No proof
She CLAIMS she had been in constant pain...No proof
The doctor is prevented by commenting by confidenti­ality rules.

Emergency room doctors get drug seekers all the time. The standard procedure is to evaluate them both for injury and for signs of drug use. If they suspect they are drug seekers they do not waste their time confrontin­g them. Instead they merely give them a non narcotic pain killer and send them on their way.

More facts.....
The same woman managed to calmly shoot herself after taking measures to make sure the shot was muffled then calmly gave her story on camera. At no time does she seem upset as one would think a normal person would be.

As for the silly blood on her hands comment...­.
Had the doctor ( who has slightly more expertise than you or I ) given her a narcotic and she either ODed or stumbled in a haze in front of a truck than on who's hands would blood be?

[easterncharacter]

05:37 PM on 06/17/2010

She was not looking for narcotics, she was looking for tests

[ROBINB72]

04:05 AM on 06/19/2010

She SAID she was in pain, Period. Her word and the word of any other person looking for medical help should be just like the word of GOD, same for the hungry or tired. Even if she was/is a drug addict, she deserves all the care of the word wherever her ailment may be until she feels otherwise.

[The Cause Endures]

11:37 AM on 06/16/2010

Well.

Damn.

[cybersense]

11:52 AM on 06/19/2010

well. put.

[treadway123]

11:04 AM on 06/16/2010

Compassion an human dignity is worthless in most states. It's greed/powe­r hungry CEO's an the likes who counts in todays world! Ya, I can just imagine the next article will be drugs involved,o­r mentally ill to counter the Hospitals failure to treat people as humans. Cows get more human treatment than people do now aday in the emergency rooms accross america, they are worth more than humans are in the almighty dollar.

[cybersense]

11:53 AM on 06/19/2010

You know, we would all do well to remember that our first inclinatio­n to treat someone with cold and preconceiv­ed judgement can really harm someone else badly. I would rather take the chance of giving someone more medication in this situation, then to know they would go out the door without any help.

[PortlandZoo]

09:30 PM on 06/15/2010

that thing about how a society is measured by how it treats its weakest citizens..­..

[cybersense]

11:53 AM on 06/19/2010

no kidding, and fanned for that one.

[BLACKCAT66]

08:49 PM on 06/15/2010

It doesn't mention what she was originally in pain from which I find odd. Bad reporting. She may have been a junkie just trying to score some pain meds, junkies do crazy things too.

[napasonoma]

09:39 PM on 06/15/2010

The ERs are a revolving door of junkies looking for meds. They have their tricks down to a science so they can keep going back to the same hospitals. They know the rules and know how to connive to be given what they want.

[treadway123]

11:16 AM on 06/16/2010

The report directly tells u she hurt her rotary cup,was in pain for over a month, that she'd been to see a doctor an they stuffed some anti flamintory drug in her hand an sent her home! Nothing said about her useing drugs, or was nutty in any way. They failed to take blood test or MRI to see if a bone was broken. Sure druggies come in off the street, an one blood test would tell them that is what they are dealing with! This is about the Almight dollar, an nothing more! My niece owed $50. the the medical Clinic in her local town, an when her little son was in pain they refused him even though the child had medicaid an they'd get paid to see him or for their services. She had to borrow the money, so her son would get medical attention!

[ROBINB72]

04:07 AM on 06/19/2010

So, junkies don't deserve medical treatment?­!

[Matt Layo]

06:52 PM on 06/15/2010

It's official. Some people are too stupid to live.

[napasonoma]

09:40 PM on 06/15/2010

Thinning of the herd.

[T4]

06:43 PM on 06/15/2010

Laura Basset must be drinking the koolaid again. This poor woman was supposedly desperate not because she wasn;t insured - she was desperate because of the outrageous prices that doctors charge for services. Ask the lady - she didn;t have the money to pay the doctor because of their charges. Whether she had insurance is irrelevant­. The debate guys is not bleeding heart stories about insurance - it's about what the doctors charge for their services. Go after the source of the problem - don;t blame the band aid we've put over the gaping wound for not doing it's job.

[granamica]

01:57 AM on 06/16/2010

Yeah, we have a pay for fee mentality that has hiked up the prices. It isn't a doctor visit fee but a consultati­on fee, a taking blood fee, a taking blood pressure fee, a putting on a bandage fee. et cetera et cetera . It is fee upon fee and insurance made it lucrative for docs to add more charges.

[easterncharacter]

10:31 PM on 06/17/2010

That too, although the lack of insurance may be a part of the problem as well. I think there must be some kind of policy solution to control the price of medical care and rein in the greedy ones

[TMMONE]

06:38 PM on 06/15/2010

Next week or the week after we will find out she wanted narcotics. Many addicts go to hospital/c­linics etc. hoping to score. The need to score will make you do crazy things! Doctors see it all the time.

[easterncharacter]

10:22 PM on 06/17/2010

The article didn't mention narcotics. If you are looking for narcotics, you go to the black market, the dealer on the street, not hospital emergency rooms. Why would one go to a hospital to buy expensive narcotics while you can get on the street?

[jojobinx]

04:50 PM on 06/15/2010

What the hell has happened to compassion and human decency. It use to be the patient comes first now it's the check first. We are on a downward spiral due to the lack of social interactio­n. People have become bloggers, posters ( myself included) they meet on facebook, myspace and Twitter endlessly. This has replaced human contact such as a handshake, hug and even a smile. So the end result is people become objects, no feelings. People will bully someone to death on the Internet , that is sick and a spineless thing to do. I would venture to guess these idiots would not/ could not do the bullying face to face. So it does not suprise me that people would walk by a dying person laying in the street. It is a shame, because not to long ago we were HUMAN. Maybe the Internet is to blame because if it's not then we were doomed from the beginning.

[Hoosierbrad]

06:00 PM on 06/15/2010

My small home town county hospital has millions in the bank and I guarantee they would have treated this woman the same way. There is no compassion anymore, only greed.

[Oregon42]

06:09 PM on 06/15/2010

Unfortunat­ely, compassion & decency don't fit on the bottom line.

[MikeyBoombots]

04:40 PM on 06/15/2010

How tragic that people are forced up to this point.

[TFDNYC]

02:40 PM on 06/15/2010

And the devolution continues.