RADILIH KOE'/FORT GOOD HOPE
A Fort Good Hope man who spent the past three years with a knife blade embedded in his back says he wants to know why health care workers never took X-rays.
Billy McNeely got a blade removed from his back last week in Yellowknife. It had been in his back for almost three years after he was stabbed multiple times in Fort Good Hope. - Katherine Hudson/NNSL photo
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"I didn't have a clue that thing was in there," said Billy McNeely.
McNeely, 32, said he was treated at the Fort Good Hope health centre after being stabbed five times during an incident in 2010.
He said he was stitched, put on antibiotics and sent home.
"They just stitched me up, bandaged me up and told me to come up and change the bandages and put me on a liquid IV antibiotic," McNeely said. "I healed up and everything, but there was always just a lump."
Since then, McNeely said he has visited the health centre in Fort Smith and walk-in clinics in Yellowknife seeking help for what he described as a burning pain where the knife wounded him.
Each time, he was told the pain was caused by nerve damage and he was released.
"They looked at it, they felt it, they felt the lump and they always told me it was just nerve damage," he said.
But McNeely said he was also setting off metal detectors.
"I've been in a correctional centre a couple times," he said. "When that guard went over my body with a metal detector, a wand, every time he got to my back that thing would start beeping."
In the early morning hours of March 18, McNeely said he was again suffering from pain in his back. This time, the area was oozing and he and his girlfriend were concerned.
McNeely said he reached around to feel the area and his fingernail caught something sharp.
"It turns out it was a four-inch steak knife," he said. "The tip of it was sticking out of my back. We went straight to emergency."
Medical staff at Stanton Territorial Hospital removed the blade, which McNeely said he has been keeping in his pocket.
"They gave it to me to keep and I am keeping it," he said.
McNeely said he believes medical professionals dismissed his complaints too easily over the past three years and he should have been given an X-ray during at least one of his medical visits.
"To tell you the truth, I'm kind of a little disappointed in the medical system, the way that I've been treated over the years, how they never really took me serious about my back pain," he said. "They should take X-rays right away and see if there's any damage in my body. They never done that."
McNeely said he has spoken to a lawyer and is determining whether to take legal action against the territory's Department of Health and Social Services.
The department did not respond to an interview request by press time.
