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MICHAEL PEREZ / Staff Photographer
Kevin McKenzie of Cherry Hill plays in a band and had no insurance at his day job as a dispatcher.
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Falling Through
Casualties of the Health Insurance Crisis
Getting emergency care under a fake name
Kevin McKenzie, 27, had a runaway heartbeat but knew he didn’t have any insurance. At the hospital, he made up a name.
One in an occasional series of stories about people who struggle with gaps in the health-insurance system.
Kevin McKenzie, 27, a graduate of Cherry Hill West High School, plays bass guitar in an up-and-coming Philadelphia indie pop band, Liam and Me.
Kevin McKenzie, 27, a graduate of Cherry Hill West High School, plays bass guitar in an up-and-coming Philadelphia indie pop band, Liam and Me.
Three years ago, because he did not have health insurance, McKenzie did something he still feels bad about.
At the time, he was working days for $10 an hour as a trucking company dispatcher and playing gigs or practicing most nights in pursuit of his dream.
One August night, McKenzie and his best friend, Greg Gaul, a high school classmate and Princeton University graduate, had just picked up a 12-pack of beer at 10 p.m. in Center City and were walking to the home of another friend to hang out.
Suddenly, McKenzie's heartbeat went berserk.
"One step I'm fine, the next my heart is just pounding," McKenzie said.
"I felt his chest," Gaul said. "His heart was pounding and it was really, really rapid. I got freaked out. 'We should call an ambulance or something.' "
"I don't know," McKenzie replied. "I don't have health insurance. I can't afford an ambulance or hospital or anything like that."
"You can't afford to die, either," Gaul argued.
They debated for several minutes, waiting for the heartbeat to return to normal. When it didn't, Gaul insisted they dial 911.
When the ambulance arrived, the paramedics checked McKenzie's pulse. "It was at 190," he said. "They're talking to me. 'Have I done anything tonight? Am I on drugs?' No. I had one beer earlier."
Paramedics told him he had to go to the hospital, McKenzie said.
"I said, 'I don't have insurance. I can't afford that,' " McKenzie recalled. "They made the decision for me. 'Listen, you're going in. Take your cell phone, give all your other identification to your friend. You're going in under a fake name.' "
In the ambulance, paramedics put an IV in McKenzie's arm and said they were giving him something like adrenalin. (Matthew O'Brien, a physician at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, said the drug typically used is adenosine.)
McKenzie said the paramedic explained that after the injection McKenzie's heart should stop for a split second and restart at a normal rhythm.
Once the medicine entered, McKenzie said he felt like somebody was "sitting on my chest." But his heart rate didn't slow. "Now it's 250 a minute. I really start worrying."
Then, McKenzie said, the paramedics "gave me two doses at once. Fortunately, that was all it took. I felt even more pressure on my chest, and my heart rate broke immediately, and I was down to 90 beats a minute."
The ambulance took him to an emergency room, according to McKenzie and girlfriend Jodi Epstein, a University of the Arts graduate who rushed there after he called her.
The ambulance crew, McKenzie said, wheeled him in on a gurney.
"They had me in a room," McKenzie said. "I was fine from that point on, just a little shaky. This lady came in to get all my info . . . "
