Many people already seem to think hospitals charge an arm and a leg, but one woman almost wound up paying that price Wednesday when she got her leg trapped near a parking lot exit machine at a hospital in Northwest D.C.
The woman was not seriously hurt in the mishap, but she did have to be rescued by D.C. firefighters.
The unusual incident happened shortly before 10:30 a.m. Wednesday as the woman was exiting a parking lot at Sibley Memorial Hospital.
The woman couldn’t reach the exit machine to insert her parking ticket, so she opened her car door and put one leg outside the car, D.C. Fire and EMS spokesman Vito Maggiolo told WTOP. At that point, it appears she took her foot off the brake and her car moved forward, crashing into the exit machine and trapping her leg.
D.C. firefighters who responded to the parking lot used several specialized rescue tools to free the woman’s trapped leg. The rescue operation took about 15 minutes, Maggiolo said.
“We wanted to be very careful in not causing any further injuries in getting her leg out,” Maggiolo said.
The woman suffered minor injuries in the incident. In the end, emergency crews transported the woman to another hospital for treatment of her injuries.
