Kathy Myers of Niles, Michigan, owns two chihuahuas and an 80 pound golden lab. Early in 2010, her lab went after one of the chihuahuas with malicious intent. She hastily intervened, and while gripping the lab, Kathy's rotator cuff was torn. "I felt it pop in three places."

At the hospital emergency entrance, they gave her a prescription for an anti-inflamitory, but otherwise refused to treat her. She'd lost her job at a waste removal company a few months earlier, and no longer had medical insurance. So the hospital did as little as possible, refused to X-Ray the injury, despite that the damage had left her nearly invalid.

The hospital's policy was not to intervene in non-life-threatening situations for the uninsured. If someone ended up crippled the rest of her life, tough. After a month of unebbing, extreme pain, Kathy could not bare it any longer.

So as to qualify for treatment of a more life-threatening condition, Kathy shot herself in the arm with a pistol. "If it was a life-threatening condition they required, I figured I'd give them one."

The hospital treated the gunshot wound but still would not treat the original injury. After the attention of the media, however, a doctor came forth willing to arrange a payment plan and treat the uninsured dyke.

Asked if she was suicidal or nuts, Kathy admitted, "Pain will make you do crazy things. Yes it will." Her girlfriend Paula Smallmon agreed, "What would you do if you couldn't get no help and you were in that kind of pain?"