TROY – When a visit to the home of friends ended with a deep dog bite on his finger, Jordan Knepper thought it would be wise to seek medical treatment.
After waiting at other emergency departments in the past, Knepper said he was pleasantly surprised when he walked into Upper Valley Medical Center.
“The wait time was about one minute,” Knepper said. “I walked in, told them what happened, and they sent me to the waiting room. I sat down and, a minute later, someone came and got me.”
“Right there, you are already leaps and bounds above other hospitals. That is all I have ever experienced at an emergency room – waiting. I think that defeats the purpose of an emergency room, so I was really impressed,” he said.
Knepper stopped by his friends’ house in Piqua after being out of town earlier this summer and was greeted, as usual, by their dogs.
“I was greeting the dogs when a new one comes around. I said, ‘Oh hi,’ and he bit my finger,” he said of the rescue dog that had joined the greeting.
The wound on the middle finger of his right hand was deep, so Knepper and his friends talked about the need for a medical check. The dog had bitten someone else earlier in the month. That person visited UVMC and information on the dog was provided at that time. Because of the earlier report and because he knows some people who work at UVMC, Knepper decided to go to UVMC versus another facility on his way home to Jackson Center.
He was taken to a treatment room where a physician assistant said stitches were in order but not before an X-ray to ensure a piece of tooth was not in the wound. Then, the wound was cleaned, the finger numbed, and the stitches done.
“I was doing my best to not be a pain and have a good time with it all,” Knepper said. “I think the total time I was in and out was under an hour. Again, I am saying, ‘Hey, this is awesome.’”
When he returned eight days later for stitches to be removed, the experience was similar.
“They got me right in,” Knepper said. “I talked to a couple of people. The physician’s assistant looked at it, the doctor signed off on it, the stitches were removed, and I was on my way.”
He was glad he decided to seek treatment at the UVMC Emergency Department.
“It turned out to be a ‘painless’ experience,” Knepper said.
