Results tagged “fail”

Low five? The Press Ganey Emergency Department Pulse Report 2009 rated NYC last among the nation's 10 largest metropolitan areas for satisfaction in emergency-department care, and New York State was 46th in overall emergency room waiting time. South Dakota came in at #1 with an average waiting time of 172 minutes, while New York narrowly beat out New Mexico with an average of 288 minutes—nearly 5 hours. (Utah came in dead last with a 408 minute wait time.) Dr. Peter Viccellio of Stony Brook University Medical Center tells Crain's "Sometimes, we can’t even spare someone to go into the waiting area and talk to patients and tell them what’s going on." He also admits to having to relocate patients to beds in hospital corridors to make room for incoming patients. Last summer a shocking video showed a woman being ignored after she died in an ER waiting room. The silver lining for NYC? This report emphasizes patient satisfaction with wait time, not with the care they eventually receive, so let's just assume we're #1 when patients eventually see a doctor—as they say, the best health comes to those who wait.

While the Parks Department's solution to the city's garbage is a giant Dumpster amongst the trees, the same thing can't quite help our water. The Daily News has a report card on our beaches, and of the 13 rated in the annual "Testing the Water" guide... things aren't looking so good.

Well, we had a good run. Today KFC has made the unsurprising decision to suspend its Oprah-backed grilled chicken giveaway. The overwhelming nationwide demand for free food had depleted KFC's chicken supply to such a degree that the company was actually going to run out of chicken before Mother's Day, which is said to be the chain's most lucrative business day. In this awkwardly upbeat video, KFC president Roger Eaton—who has the weirdest Kentucky accident we've ever heard—explains the crisis, now entering day three:

Officer Jon Goldin, an NYPD helicopter pilot who was dismissed for failing a drug test in 2006, has lost his recent appeal, in which he maintained that the cocaine found in his system was the result of "passive ingestion." In other words, the hair sample they tested was coked up because of all the sweaty sex with his druggie girlfriend! (Kind of reminds us of that Seinfeld poppy seed muffin episode!) But when the all snickering subsides, the explanation actually starts to seem somewhat plausible; Goldin, a 15-year veteran of the NYPD who's been straight-edge for years, had 70 friends testify about his relentless sobriety, which even extends to caffeine.

David Blaine didn't disappear during his Dive of Death this week, and he's certainly not disappearing from the press. He's now come close to admitting failure, but is blaming both President Bush and nature. That's right, the "amazing" ending he dreamed up was foiled by high winds. "Blaine said his grand finale of diving from a platform 44 feet to the ground while attached to a harness didn't go according to plan. He was supposed to jump and, at 10 feet, be swept away by a bunch of helium-filled balloons. Instead, he dangled awkwardly for a moment before disappearing in an ascent into the night sky." He also added, "I know that it didn't work right when all my friends called up and said, `Wait, what happened? I'm confused.'" Apparently the massive roar of "boos" didn't tip him off. [via Mollygood]