A TikTok video showing a woman getting treated in a hospital parking lot because all beds were full with Covid patients has gone viral.
Sophia Santana, 23, was at a California hospital because of a severe asthma attack, and she ended up being treated outside in the ambulance bay as there was no space left inside.
The multimedia artist, who posts on the TikTok account @philosophia_art, uploaded a clip of herself sitting outside the hospital taking in oxygen. The caption says: “Get ya vaccines people.”
In the video, which shows the empty parking area, she laughs wheezily into an oxygen mask, as overlay text says: “The hospital has no beds. I am straight up in a parking lot.”
Ms Santana wrote in the comments: “PSA I went to the hospital cuz I had severe asthma attack not covid!!”
She later posted an update responding to those who had doubted her initial post was true, showing hospital paperwork that described severe asthma symptoms.
“As my fellow asthmatics would know, if you’re at that point, you really need to go to the hospital because people can die from asthma,” said Ms Santana. “It’s not cool.”
Ms Santana also gave a fuller account of her traumatic experience, saying she was “gasping for air for several hours,” while waiting for help at the hospital, at one point, “on all fours” and “freaking out”. She says she was then wheeled out to the ambulance bay where staff told her she was on camera so could wave her arms around if she needed help.
She wrapped up her post saying that she’s “fine and fortunate” and that she thought the situation was funny.
An ICU bed shortage has affected hospitals across the country as the Covid pandemic continues to hospitalise thousands.
According to statistics from the Department of Health and Human Services, two weeks ago more than 77 per cent of staffed ICU beds across the United States were occupied.
