WebMd, the hypochondriac’s wet dream turned digital, is notorious for convincing invalid hopefuls that their pounding headache is actually just a tricky little combination of diabetes and cyanide poisoning. But crippling neuroticism apparently isn’t the only negative side effect of our dependence on the site.
At least not for one mother who delayed taking her freshly shot 14-year-old son to the hospital for seven hours because searching WebMD for “gunshot wound” seemed like a good first step.
The actual event, which was captured by the family’s in-home surveillance system, took place last Tuesday night when the boy was shot in the upper thigh with a “high-calibre bullet”. It was at this point that the boy’s mother turned to the internet’s infinite wisdom to find out what her son’s fresh, bleeding puncture wound might possibly mean. Because maybe he picked a scab.
After waiting seven hours, presumably to see if it this was one of those things that might clear up on its own, the woman finally brought her son to the emergency room where he, fortunately, remains in stable condition. Less fortunately for the mother, she is currently being investigated for felony charges for injury to a child by omission, while 24-year-old Pete Jesse Rodriguez has been identified as the shooter and charged appropriately. [Yahoo Shine]