Nathan broke his spine in two places in a motorbike crash. He was rushed to hospital in extreme pain... but that's when the real horror began
Nathan Buckland, 39, spent five days in Royal Darwin Hospital (RDH) after crashing his motorbike in Girraween, a semi-rural area in Darwin's south, on July 13.
On top of the incredible pain, the force of the impact caused him to soil himself.
Embarrassed and unable to move, Mr Buckland called his wife, Sophie, for help.
In the five days he spent in hospital, the landscaper claimed not one nurse offered to help him clean himself up, leaving him embarrassed and ashamed.
'When I crashed, I pooed. I was beating myself up the whole time I was in there but I could only move my head,' he said.
'I didn't want to admit it but I told the nurses I thought I'd pooed myself.
'No one helped.'
Mr Buckland said he would feel ashamed every time the nurses came in to roll him over and revealed the dirty bedsheets.
'I was on the phone crying to my wife a lot. I was numb and couldn't control my bowels or bladder,' he said.
'There was one night Soph visited and I'd wet the bed.
'I didn't get to clean myself up until I was home on Thursday.'
During his first few days at the hospital, Mr Buckland wasn't able to eat as he received no assistance to sit up.
'I was on so many painkillers, there were several times I didn't even realise my food was there. I would sometimes see someone come in with a cart but, from where I was lying on the bed, the most I could see was the bottom of the food tray,' he said.
'Then they would come in and ask if I had finished eating, I'd say no because I couldn't move and they'd take the food away.'
Mr Buckland claimed he heard nurses discussing the hospital being 'full' and felt as though they were skipping important tasks to keep up with demand.
In one case, Mr Buckland read a note on his chart claiming he'd denied a blood test.
When he questioned the nurse, she apologised and said she had already 'done 100 blood tests' and was 'having a bad day'.
RDH implemented a Code Yellow on July 8 after it was overwhelmed by a surge of patients requiring acute care for severe or urgent medical conditions.
The hospital said a 'range of measures' had been implemented to ease pressure and improve patient flow, asking that visitors be 'kind to our staff'.
The Code Yellow was lifted on July 14.
Patients with spinal injuries typically undergo blood tests to detect any damage to their kidneys. Mr Buckland was not offered another blood test.
Since returning home, he's suffered kidney pain and has scheduled an appointment with his GP to undergo further blood tests.
In another instance, Mrs Buckland overheard a supervisor asking why her husband hadn't been offered a replacement dinner.
Mr Buckland explained that he had accidentally spilled his dinner on the ground after he tried to use the food cart to pull himself into a sitting position.
'I felt so bad and I wanted to pick it up but I'd already hurt myself trying to sit up. They never brought me back any dinner. My wife later heard the nurse saying that I'd purposely pushed it on the floor,' he said.
Mr Buckland hopes to bring attention to the capacity issues at RDH by sharing his experience at the hospital.
'I heard the nurses constantly talking about how all the beds were full. They're run off their feet. Still, what's going on at the moment isn't right,' he said.
'I'm out of the hospital now but there's plenty of people still there probably being treated the same way. We have a lot of Indigenous communities in the NT that don't use English as their first language. I couldn't understand a lot of the medical language - how are they going to ask for help?'
While he recovers at home, Mrs Buckland is running their garden care business largely by herself. As they face ongoing physiotherapy costs, on top of a loss of income, a family friend has started a GoFundMe to help the family.
A spokesman from the NT Health Department told Daily Mail Australia: 'NT Health is unable to provide comment on individuals due to patient confidentiality.'
When asked if RDH was under investigation or experiencing ongoing capacity issues, the department gave the same response.
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