I think they're misusing google

[redbird]

I have just told a complete stranger on the Internet to get her partner emergency medical care ASAP. I shouldn't have had to do this: but she shouldn't have dealt with the situation by, apparently, googling, finding an old blog thread on "A simple bump on the head can kill you," and posting to describe a concussion followed immediately by slurred speech and trouble finding words, and a day later by continuous headache and the person saying he couldn't think straight.

This is what the emergency number, NHS Direct, and maybe the Mayo Clinic website are for.

I hope she sees and follows my advice. (The person whose blog it is answered a similar comment on the same post from some months ago with "we don't dispense medical advice here, but I suggest getting him medical care." But I'm not a doctor, so the constraints on me are different and, in this case, I think lesser.)

Comments

[elisem.livejournal.com]

I sit corrected. Though posting a question to a defunct blog thread (as I understand the original description) is not quite the same thing as doing research. Or at least not the same thing as doing research successfully, if they post the question, post again the next day, and then sit there hoping somebody will tell them the answer. Which isn't really what you were describing -- but that was what I was taking issue with when I said what I said.

I sure didn't say it very well, though.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

Oh, sure. The combination of posting to a defunct blog thread and not having any idea a bad concussion is a medical emergency points to disturbing cluelessness. (If the injured person were asking, it might look like confusion related to the concussion. When somebody else asks *about* the injured person, it's just clueless.) If the person were posting to an old blog thread about something less well-known to be dire, I'd regard it differently.