When I broke my ankle and the EMTs came to my house to transport me, they made me hop down my front steps. They said that they couldn’t get their stretcher up my stairs. I’ve always wondered, what if I had broken both ankles or was unconscious? It seems like that must happen and there must be ways to handle it.

Even if that’s entirely reasonable, when we got to the hospital - literally designed for this and involving no stairs that I crossed - they made me get off of their stretcher, hop to a wheelchair, wait in it for a few hours, then get out of it and hop to a new stretcher, where they finally let me stay until I left the hospital.

At the hospital I go to now, I most recently went for a surgery on my back. Though it was painful, I was ambulatory; however, without me even asking the escorting nurse said “are you okay? Would you like a wheelchair?” for the relatively short walk from the entrance to the prep area. I declined but it was a far preferable experience. When they were testing whether I could walk afterwards the PT guy walked behind me with a wheelchair in case I fell. I didn’t even notice him get it.

One last aside: where I now live, literally across the street from the aforementioned hospital, there’s a small apartment building. I think you have to climb eight flights of stairs to get to the front porch, then presumably more if you’re not on the entry level area. Most every time I drive past that place I feel grateful that’s not where I broke my ankle.