All those who think Canada's universal healthcare is superior to the U.S system

may wish to reconsider:

The actress Natasha Richardson, who died on Wednesday from a brain hemorrhage after a fall on a beginner’s ski slope in Quebec, was not admitted to a hospital until nearly four hours after her accident, according to ambulance dispatch records obtained by the New York Times on Friday.

That is nearly three hours later than the timeline officials at the Mont Tremblant ski resort, about 90 minutes north of Montreal, offered on Tuesday, the day after Ms. Richardson’s fatal fall.

The first paramedics to arrive were turned away after Ms. Richardson declined treatment, ambulance records show, though they reported seeing the 45-year-old actress briefly from a distance. In that instance, they said they saw her sitting on a stretcher — not laughing and walking off her fall, as a resort spokeswoman said on Tuesday.

Those discrepancies seemed to introduce new questions about whether Ms. Richardson, who suffered an epidural hematoma — an accumulation of blood between the brain and the skull — after her fall, could have been saved had she been treated faster.

BCWUW4: be careful what you wish for.