Thoroughly F***ed by Hill-Rom

Woke up in pain overnight, seems my Hill-Rom hospital bed's specialty air mattress stopped pumping air to the middle (seat) segment of the mattress. Sitting in a hole + my legs are falling asleep... Can't get comfortable...

Call they support number, only open weekdays, directed to an emergency number.

Call emergency number and am told they no longer do 24/7 service calls... I say I know they do, they have been here before and I know they still do it- she says basically not for home customers, not anymore- nothing she can do but make a note for them on Monday.

No clue what I'm going to do until then... I can't take this...

This isn't going to be free support either- I'd be lucky if this ends up costing me only $1,000.

****, sorry Joe.

Start writing a nice letter to them, that is messed up.

Our BIL's dealing w/a bad bed sore right now.

Gotta make sure that doesn't happen.

Be safe and best of luck.

do you not have anyone around mechanically inclined enough to at least take a look at it?

mojokat said:

do you not have anyone around mechanically inclined enough to at least take a look at it?

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No... Mom took apart as much as she is comfortable- as much as I would be comfortable... this cost $27,000 new in 2010... there aren't many user-serviceable parts.

I'm guessing a pump somewhere died, I hear a clicking sound when the bed starts up... my guess is the pump clicks then shuts down.

This is the bed: Intensive Care Bed - TotalCare P500 | Hill-Rom

well is anyone available to go to Walmart and buy a shitload of MegaPillows to stuff under your ass? they were $3 a piece last time I bought them.

Hill-Rom... a division of California Tops.

..or you could always try unplugging it and plugging it back in.

off a cough said:

Hill-Rom... a division of California Tops.

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Goddamn that's funny shit!

mojokat said:

..or you could always try unplugging it and plugging it back in.

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Did that 10 times... soft reset, hard reset... no luck.

Hard Reset Instructions:

unplug bed

turn lockouts on
-hold lock down
-hit each down button 1 at a time
let go lock
-press and hold 4 buttons head up/down / knee up/down - 6 seconds
opens relay

turn lockout back off to bring bed back online.

Any chance of buying a pump for an air mattress and using that to pump it up for the weekend? Is there a port to hook one externally to?

that bed appears to be PLC controlled, he's fawked.

he needs a bounce house for a bed, then only little kids can come visit him.

Rent a bounce house for the weekend.

I would ask for a refund as the purchase price was supported by the fact that they offered 24/7 service.... then once you get it serviced, I'd get the service guy's number and call him directly for future out of hours service needs.

wct097 said:

I would ask for a refund as the purchase price was supported by the fact that they offered 24/7 service.... then once you get it serviced, I'd get the service guy's number and call him directly for future out of hours service needs.

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Part A, yes. Part B, um, no. The service guy has no control over company policies, and is not responsible for the company's crappy actions, and does not deserve to pay the price with his own personal time.

Clearly the service guy can decline, but he probably has a lot of leeway that the corporate call center doesn't have. Same goes with the cable guy. My cable and satellite installers have offered me their cards and suggested I call them if I needed anything rather than having to deal with the corporate call center.

We have an adjustable bed and mattress being delivered tomorrow by noon. It's not a hospital bed by any means but it should allow me to sit up or lay down and a decent mattress... hopefully a day or two tops. We'll see.

Right now we put some foam under my butt... it's not great but it's better than it was.

Spent an hour with Hill-Rom tech support this morning... no luck tracking down the issue... they need to send someone here to fix it... can they just do that? No!

First, it's out of warranty so it's going to cost an arm and leg.

Worse, despite the fact that there is no insurance involved we still have to go through government red tape that is going to delay getting someone here to fix it.. maybe hours, maybe days, I don't know yet.

Waiting now for a call back from the billing department to tell me what the damage is going to be...

I suspect I'll be lucky if it's only half what my GoFundMe brought in.

I also feel awful... I may just go to the hospital.

After all that... it appears by troubleshooting with my mom the real problem is a leak in the air bladder of the seat cushion. We did the one thing the Hill-Rom guy didn't do which was check the air pressure in normal mode, which would be the mode I'm normally in.

My hope is changing what is essentially a heavy duty pool float is cheaper than the compressor and other things the first guy was adding to the quote.

BirdOPrey5 said:

After all that... it appears by troubleshooting with my mom the real problem is a leak in the air bladder of the seat cushion. We did the one thing the Hill-Rom guy didn't do which was check the air pressure in normal mode, which would be the mode I'm normally in.

My hope is changing what is essentially a heavy duty pool float is cheaper than the compressor and other things the first guy was adding to the quote.

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If you can find the leak, you can probably just patch it.