RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Edinburgh's Hogmanay celebrations: beyond a major disaster.
JF Journal of Accident & Emergency Medicine
JO Arch Emerg Med
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and the British Association for Accident & Emergency Medicine
SP 272
OP 273
DO 10.1136/emj.15.4.272
VO 15
IS 4
A1 J J O'Donnell
A1 A P Gleeson
A1 H Smith
YR 1998
UL http://emj.bmj.com/content/15/4/272.abstract
AB OBJECTIVE: To assess the impact of Edinburgh's Hogmanay celebrations on the city's accident and emergency (A&E) service. METHODS: Retrospective analysis. RESULTS: A crowd estimated at more than 350,000 attended the celebrations. During the three day period between 00.01 h on 31 December and 23.59 h on 2 January, 1151 new patients presented to the A&E department and of these half arrived in the first 24 hours. Thirty six patients required emergency resuscitation and eight died in the department during the study period. CONCLUSIONS: The absolute number of patients presenting during the study period greatly exceeded most of the "major disasters" in contemporary UK experience. No deaths were directly attributable to the event, but the spectrum of patient pathologies, their severity and presentation is analogous to several recent major incidents. It is doubtful whether the Hogmanay celebrations are safe.