Several years ago while on a deer hunting trip to New Mexico my son broke his arm riding a trail bike, it started swelling and turned almost black immediately. We were about 12-15 miles from the nearest paved road and then about 20 miles to Santa Rosa. I dropped the cabover camper off my truck and we headed out to the hospital arriving there at about 10:30pm on a Saturday night. We took him through the emergency entrance, there was no one there but there was a big red button with a sign that read for emergency. I rang the bell and a nurse came in, she could not speak but a few words of english and most of that was "Oh, my God, oh, My God! She left for a few minutes then came back and directed us to the X-ray room where she told us."you stay, you stay" We sat and waited, after a while a young man came in, I found out he was the doctor, but he didn't speak much english either. When the x-ray tech came in I talked to her and she acted as an interpeter between the doctor, my son and I. His arm was broke bad, both bones in two places. We were there for about four hours before they got a cast on it. They gave him something for pain and I drove him to Clovis, NM, woke my wife then turned around and headed back to pickup my camper and bikes. While I was gone my son woke up and was in really bad pain, my wife had to take him to the emergency room at Cannon AFB hospital. The doctor there had to cut the cast due to swelling, but x-rayed the break again and saaid the doctor did a wonderful job of getting the bones back in place. I don't know for a fact, but I would be willing to bet the doctor that set the arm was raised, schooled, and possibly interned in Mexico.
Like Siskiyou said, rural America does not have the best or most modern health care facilities, when you get off the beaten path in places such as Terlingua, TX a doctor can't be found. If there is an emergency you may be up the creek with out a paddle.
