<p>Cressmom- I'm hoping your son is doing okay. When you have a moment, please update.</p>
<p>She must be busy with the Wash U insurance mess. I saw the kid; he looks much better but still has stitches in his nose, bruises and something bulky in his mouth (protector type).</p>
<p>Having worked at universities for years, I can tell you that at any university that has a residential population, there are people on call 24/7, even Labor Day. The Dean of Students Office is the place to call. It's possible you'll get a recording on a holiday but it should refer you to someone's cell phone. </p>
<p>I have enough friends who work in Student Affairs to have heard countless stories about how they've been called at 4am to take or meet students in emergency rooms (or jails!). Always makes me happy NOT to work in Student Affairs!</p>
<p>The best thing is for parents to find out ahead of time what emergency services are offered and who to call - just in case. That's not being a helicopter parent . . . that's just being smart!!</p>
<p>I hope the OP's son is doing better! How frightening for her.</p>
<p>The emergency is attended, the problem is there no one to follow up once the student is back to campus. This past weekend my roommate got sick and the nurse responded to our call three hours later. I had to go to SHS yesterday for my allergies and I was treated intermediately. Holidays and weekend are the problem.</p>
<p>Trapper: Not knowing what was wrong with your roommate or what the nurse was told, it seems 3 hours is a bit long. If you feel you are not getting the care you need, call the Dean of Students Office. They should get someone to respond.</p>
<p>If a student is treated either at the on-campus health center or at the local emergency room, there should be follow-up by the campus health service, the Dean of Students Office, and the Hall Director (if the student lives in a dorm.) (If you get yourself to the ER and don't notify the school, of course there won't be follow-up.) The Student Affairs people I've known at a number of universities take student care VERY seriously. </p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>Thank you all for the get well wishes. S is doing ok, still has a long way ahead until fully recovering with more doctors to see and surgeries to be done, but at least we as a family are handling it and he is very brave for doing everything by himself with no complains (he has no car, there is no escort service, but public transportation works fine for him).
Three weeks had passed since the accident and not yet words from the university administration.<br>
It is upsetting knowing that in cases like this, nobody cares; no one takes responsibility for an accident on campus. My S saw already a dozen of doctors mostly specialist and surgeons, and everyone was very professional and caring, but since most of them are out of the university insurance network, we have to pay for them.
Thanks again for your kindness when I needed most.</p>
<p>Cressmom</p>
<p>Thanks for the update. I was wondering how your son was doing.</p>
<p>Very sobering.....</p>
<p>Since you are concerned that the response from the administration was inadequate, you should write a letter explaining your concerns and send it to as many administrators as you can identify. Include your phone number and email address so that they can contact you.</p>
<p>I did two weeks ago, no answers yet.</p>
<p>I find the lack of contact/concern from the university appalling.</p>
<p>I sure hope this isn't the norm on college campuses. It is a very upsetting story.</p>
<p>Best of luck to your son, in his continued recovery.</p>
<p>There won't be any response until they have cleared it with their legal department. Courtesy is nice, but protection from lawsuits is nicer.</p>
<p>Reading through this post, I have a couple of thoughts for all of us who have kids far from home. In my phone book is every phone number for my D's school security team -- the evening shuttles, the security number as well as the police number in her town. Because she goes to school in an area that does have some crime, I have talked to someone in the police department a few times (once when she was deciding and I wanted to get some real facts on safety and once when there was a crime wave and I wanted to ask what was being done to secure the perimeter of the school.) I think it's good to have the information. No one wants to be searching through reams of college paperwork looking for numbers in an emergency. The numbers of the health center -- including the urgent care -- is also good to have. I think I also have the contact information (somehow I got a magnet in the mail that is on the fridge) for the hospital near the school. My kid has a doctor in her town for a chronic illness and I have all that contact information as well. Also, one last thing. Last summer there was a minor emergency and I couldn't reach her. It turned out her phone was broken and she didn't yet realize it. I realized that I had not one phone number for any of her friends. I was able to reach the dean's secretary who contacted a friend for me. Now I have a few phone numbers of friends who are either close to her or with whom she lives. I would only use them in an emergency. I've done the same for my grown son who lives 30 minutes from me. If there's an earthquake, or some other emergency, and my kid isn't answering, I want to be able to reach a roommate or friend who lives nearby.</p>
<p>What am I supposed to do?</p>
<p>Almost four weeks since the accident and still no one cares. The university ambulance sent the bill to pay a fortune because they said no one notified the insurance, my S went to the student’s health department to ask for a claim form to fix that, and they don’t have them, they just said he has to call the insurance in other city and deal with them. We didn’t ask for this insurance, the university get it for all the students you like it or not and charge you a good amount of money. The insurance said that my S had to give that information at the time he called the ambulance (he didn’t, the university police did), are they kidding? He was injured, bleeding with an exposed bone and knocked out teeth and he supposed to be given the information about his insurance before the ambulance picked him up?
This whole nonsense is driving me crazy, and the university didn’t calls us back or answered any of our letters and there is no one to help him even with a tiny advice in how to deal with the insurance the university forced you to have it.
What should I do? The university has a huge hospital but they sent my kid to doctors 10 and more miles away and he is spending hundreds on taxis and has to do all the paperwork by himself asking first to the referrals and later call the insurance (takes more than an hour each time to reach somebody), and he is missing important classes just because he fell in a faulty on campus sideway.
Thank you for letting me vent out, and just don’t know what else to do, I’m feeling that I have to put my life on hold and going there to help my son with all the administrative nightmare before next surgery takes place in a month.</p>
<p>Dear Cressmom:</p>
<p>Write to the president of WashU. Let him know that you are retaining a lawyer. Write to the dean in charge of your student; your son's studies are being affected not only by the accident itself but by the issues pertaining to follow-up.</p>
<p>I was also thinking the "L" word might wake them up.</p>
<p>Do as Marite says. Go to the top and coolly mention a lawyer; that is the only thing that worked when my daughter's hand was mangled in a conveyor belt at an airport and I kept getting billed for the ambulance ride to the hospital.</p>
<p>You might also mention that you are letting people know via an internet forum that Washington Univ. has not impressed you as a place that gives a hoot about its undergraduates. (I, for one, am sort of glad my son decided to go somewhere else, now that I have heard your story!)</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>Cressmom, the last few posts are right on.</p>
<p>Colleges don't want or need bad publicity. Even on this tiny forum, WUSL is getting bad press (I wouldn't want to send a kid of mine there either, after hearing about this episode). </p>
<p>I think the president has to know that you are serious about wanting answers, reparations, and changes to their emergency response system, and/or you will have your lawyer speak to them as well as blow the case wide open in public. I would write a letter to the biggest paper in St Louis, as well as the campus paper.</p>
<p>I am still so beyond horrified to think that colleges, in whom we trust our children, could be so cavalier.</p>
<p>Please keep us posted.</p>
<p>I would also suggest going on the Wash U site on this board and telling your family's story.</p>
<p>I suspect that admissions officers from many colleges monitor their college's specific board on College Confidential, but they may not monitor the Parents Forum.</p>
<p>I'm not sure I'd use the "L" word right now (and I'm a (non-practicing) L!)</p>
<p>I think it's an excellent idea to contact the president or, in the case of Wash U, the Chancellor, Mark Wrighton. I'd also contact (or, at least, send a copy of the letter to the Chancellor) the Vice Chancellor for Students, James McLeod. </p>
<p>If you don't get an adeqate response, then i's time to bring an L into play.</p>
<p>And I love the idea of going to the Wash U section of CC. Prospective students and their parents need to know what they can expect if they go to Wash U and something happens. And, Wash U won't want the bad publicity! (Newspapers are not a bad idea either - but again, I'd wait to see if the Chancellor responds.)</p>
<p>I must admit I'm shocked that a private university such a Wash U has been so unhelpful to you and your son. I've worked at far "lesser" places where this would not have happened.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>You need a lawyer, last year the injured frat boys’ parents didn’t wait to send their lawyers and Wash U paid everything, and the boys just had scratches.</p>