I’ve been to the ER three times in the past two years. The fastest time I was admitted was 45 minutes (the wait time was advertised outside as 8 minutes) when it was very early in the morning and we were literally the only ones in the waiting room. The shortest time I was there was 6 hours.
Admittedly, I was not dying, so I was probably not a priority, but that’s pretty nuts.
Also, I don’t live in a big city. The city has a population of less than 60,000 and two hospitals. It still took that long.
Edit: also, a prisoner from the federal prison came in after me and left before me. And he was probably not dying either because they didn’t exactly rush in to see him. Fun to hear his ankle chains rattling around and thinking about how he was suffering from that as well while I was in pain though.