Emergency Department Boarding Stories

"We are a 28 bed ED that sees approximately 90 patients per day. We were boarding 24 patients for admission, all rooms were full and we had 17 in the waiting room.  One of the waiting room patients presented for nausea and after waiting 2.5 hours it was noted that the patient was slumped in their chair. They were unresponsive and an EKG that was obtained in the ED hallway since we had no open rooms revealed a heart attack. The patient went to the cath lab and was found to have a 100% occlusion of the left main coronary artery. The patient died. If this patient had been seen by a physician this would have been recognized and the patient may have survived with more timely care."