Patients experience life-changing moment at free health clinic
Americans are driving hundreds of miles and waiting on line for days to get free medical help from RAM.
Dave Burge slept in his truck overnight in frigid weather for a dental appointment.
Burge needed dentures, but was unable to afford them. He was one of more than 1,200 patients, some of whom waited in line for days, to get a free appointment at a Remote Area Medical pop-up clinic in Knoxville, Tennessee. RAM provides medical, dental and vision care to uninsured and underinsured Americans around the country.
"When they hand you your life back, that's life changing," Burge said. "That's what teeth mean to me. I could be a normal human again."
Burge already spent around $140,000 on medical bills after an uninsured drunk driver ran a red light and nearly killed him in 2012, he said. Then, one day, a construction accident while at work wrecked his teeth again.
"By then I was pretty thin on money to do much about it. So I didn't have a lot of choices. I just kept working."
Sandra Tallent, who drove more than 200 miles from Alabama and spent two nights sleeping in her car for a dental appointment with RAM, said she would also be unable to afford dentures if not for the free clinic.