Survived Oktoberfest 2011 - The Real One

[Bernhard]

At least my duty day is over.

Oktoberfest in Munich is "the largest festival of the world", yearly celebrating the anniversary of the marriage of King Ludwig I. of Bavaria to Princess Therese on 12th October 1810. Sixteen to eighteen days (depends on yearly holidays) long, starting end of each September. Fourteen large beer tents (large = approx. 4.000 to 10.000 seats) and some little ones. Around 6 million visitors in two weeks, this makes between 200 and 400 thousand visitors each day - the size of a city in it's own. Sometimes around seven persons per square meter, if tents are populated (which they are each early afternoon), dancing and chanting. They will intake more than 7 million litres of beer, half a million chickens ("Hendl"), over 100 oxen, 40 tons of fish and around 120 thousand portions of pork sausages ("Bratwurst") plus a lot more of beverages and sweets. A lot of rides and attractions will serve those who are willing to have fun outside a beer tent.

Each day, 120-150 volunteer Red Cross medics, EMTs and doctors take care of the festival visitors, accompanied by the normal Munich city EMS which is reinforced by approx. 10 ambulances around the festival grounds. From 09:00 a.m til 02:00 am the next day, they staff a large central medical post, three outside medical aid stations (container) and ten mobile stretcher teams.

This year, again, I was one of them.

The central medical post consists of six emergency treatment cabins, one intensive care unit, two stitching cabins, a 16 place monitoring unit for drunks and two resting areas for male and female guests. There, a medic and a doctor will triage the incoming patients, more doctors and medics/EMTs will treat those in need (or monitor until getting better) and - if needed - request transport to a hospital.

The stretcher teams are the ones responding on the festival grounds, by foot. At least one tactical team leader, one responsible medic and two EMTs per team take over primary care and transport to the central medical post, if applicable. Often, they will call in direct help from an ambulance, if patient conditions are worse. Medical equipment is a jump bag, oxygene and an AED, the stretcher is carried on wheels and covered with a special designed weather (and view) protection.

The small outside aid stations are containers, equipped with the same as the stretcher team plus a closet full of band aids and stuff. One medic and one or two EMTs try to make their best there, assisted by called in stretcher teams or ambulances.

Personally I had 61 treatments this day. My patient's nationalities (and languages) were: italian, canadian, united states, england, denmark, norway, austrian, australian, irish, spanish, german and some more (in no special order).

The usual thing are blisters from shiny new lady shoes. Others involve head aches (non-alcohol related, since the other type usually comes the day after) and small flesh wounds. A young gentlemen accidentally tried to sit in a broken bottle and took a deep cut in his thigh, loosing a lot of blood, sputtering over his new pair of "Lederhosen" (and the floor of our post), needed i.v. access and a fast ambulance ride into an OR. Two girls had severe migraine pain, nearly relevant to their vitals, needing i.v. fluid and medical pain control. One cutting his finger to the bone, a lot of previously taken alcohol saved him a lot from pain. Some more straightly fell on their nose, not aware, that Munich Oktoberfest beer is stronger than usual and served in 1 liter mugs - one probably broken nose, several severe cuts and the loss off some teeth were the results. Two bee stings needed our attention, but only with local allergical reactions. A kid tried to run fast in a mirror maze, always a bad idea - resulting in a large bulge and a slight commotio. Some people just couldn't stand the wild roller costers and carousels, needing a timeout under blood pressure monitoring.

One gentleman was brought by two of his friends, their diagnosis was clear: "He's drunk!". Yes, just like anybody else here, except us service workers. "But he walks funny!". Well, should I really explain to some 50 year old dudes, what alcohol can do to the human body's equilibrium sense? And that it's all OK as long as he generally knows where the sky is? "We'll take you by your word!" - yes, but take him with you, we simply don't have spare place for over 100'000 of his kind...

Only one real drunk (without any additional medical condition) was to be taken care for. Just couldn't make his way home alone, constantly fell to sleep. A stretcher team eventually brought him to the monitoring unit...

Then finally a nice little old lady with dementia, lost on the Oktoberfest (but not worried about) was handed over to the police.

And that were only some of my patients this year, out of approx. total 700 this day - nothing but a normal shift on Oktoberfest. At least I wasn't attacked this year, no one tried to actively bleed or vomit on me and no drunk australian girl screamed name-callings in my ear at 5 centimeter distance (as last year). One day and night of sleep and all is bright again, forgetting blood and vomit, remembering only the nice talks, short lady "Dirndl" skirts, "Bratwurst" and "Hendl" smell, light shows and all the fun we had in our team. Let's see, what next year brings...

Greetings to the visiting EMS fellows from the U.S., Canada and Denmark I found some minutes to talk to (actually wishing good luck to the canadian guy). And thanks to the colleagues of Italian White Cross, officially supporting us with their italian language skills, for their great help.

Some links:

• Oktoberfest on Wikipedia
  
• official Oktoberfest homepage (english)
  
• Red Cross homepage of Oktoberfest medical coverage (german)
  

Hope you enjoyed this report...

[DwayneEMTP]

Wait, let me make sure I've got this straight, as I don't want to buy the wrong airline ticket tomorrow...

I can come to the festival, get completely blitzed out of my brain, go to the medical tent where you'll run some fluids, monitor me, let me lay down and rest until I feel better, and then I can simply walk out of the tent back into the beer area??

Good God....If there is a heaven? It must be something almost exactly like that...only everyone would be naked. (They weren't naked, were they? Cause if so I'll leave now and just sit on a bench and wait until it starts next time.)

sounds like a hell of a party Brother! And it sounds as if it would be fun as hell to work as well...they're lucky to have you.

Dwayne

[Bernhard]

I can come to the festival, get completely blitzed out of my brain, go to the medical tent where you'll run some fluids, monitor me, let me lay down and rest until I feel better, and then I can simply walk out of the tent back into the beer area??

Therotically: yes. In real: no, but for technical reasons. Usually, the drunks need one or two hours to recover fully enough to crawl out of the medical station. If you're not one of the real early ones, then the beer tent you want to get back usually has closed gates until then - they are overfilled at early afternoon, on weekends even short after opening. If you leave, you have lost.

BTW: it's not a tent anymore (was, when I started working there). Since several years they have a fixed building as central post, kind of a emergency hospital. Drunk's monitoring room is special tempered and cleanable...(and the best EMT training area for practising i.v. access).

Good God....If there is a heaven? It must be something almost exactly like that...only everyone would be naked. (They weren't naked, were they? Cause if so I'll leave now and just sit on a bench and wait until it starts next time.)

Some are. Sometimes the women also.

But that's not a medical problem, so I don't see much of them. Flirt factor is high in the medical station, though.

If you come over, just drop me a note. Next year Oktoberfest starts at September,22nd (til October, 7th).

sounds like a hell of a party Brother! And it sounds as if it would be fun as hell to work as well...they're lucky to have you.

Well, don't ask the medics at 02:00 in the morning if they want to come again...but, a year later, they'll be there.

Yes, it's fun to work there and to see the festival from the other side. The most astonishing is, that you have not only drunks but much more emergencies of all kinds, through the book, you almost never see in the field elsewhere - plus the alcohol. Which makes things not easier.

It's fun to visit Oktoberfest without working there as well, but pretty high priced - there are cheaper ways in Bavaria to just get drunk. For tourists it's a must see, though.

So, you don't have an excuse anymore not coming over here!

Edited September 28, 2011 by Bernhard

[flamingemt2011]

Hmmmm Dwayne, I will split the cost of the trip with you. Naked dudes and beer, that is heaven.

[Bernhard]

Hmmmm Dwayne, I will split the cost of the trip with you. Naked dudes and beer, that is heaven.

Expect most of the naked to be Australians, for some reason I don't know (I suspect the beer has something to do with it).

I want not to sound like an advertising agent and it doesn't have something to do with the medical field, but there even are some special events organized by the Munich gay community: "Gay Sunday" and "RoslWiesn" at the following monday (a kind of pun on "Pink Meadow", where "Wiesn"=meadow is the bavarian slang term for the festival grounds and meanwhile for the whole festival, "Rosl" is a girl's name and part of the name of the beer tent the happening takes place) plus some other special gay/lesbian events more. See http://www.rosawiesn.de/ (only in german language as it seems). Watch out for the real bavarian gay folk dance group, the Schwuhplattler (english page). Hey, this is Munich. You're all welcome, if you let your money here...

Any other questions more related to my original report above?

Edited September 28, 2011 by Bernhard

[Vorenus]

Well, Bernhard, seems like you enjoy to do the work. Personally, I wouldn`t wanna work at the Oktoberfest, even if I were paid for it.

Wasn`t actually there, though (lots of my friends were, though). It`s just not my thing I guess, I don`t really fancy events as big as that. Furthermore, a Maß for more than 9 Euro is just way too much.

Although the prospect of naked chicks does sound good...

Edited September 28, 2011 by Vorenus

[WolfmanHarris]

Hey if you happened to treat a hammered Canadian, muttering something about being a Paramedic, let me know. A guy from my platoon was there.

[Bernhard]

Hey if you happened to treat a hammered Canadian, muttering something about being a Paramedic, let me know. A guy from my platoon was there.

You surely will see it if he was it, the scars will last a bit. If he tells something about six strong Bavarians polishing his teeth and he knocked off three of them, don't believe it - it was only the flat street suddenly coming somewhat up close to his face. For more details I'm bound to professional confidentiality. Say hello to him, though.

The best part with this guy was, he was accompanied by a civil first aider, drunk, too. That one offered to translate the canadian english to german. The patient himself offered to talk in very broken german. Another patient (drunk italian) offered to translate between broken german and english as well. I refused all offers, because I'm fluent in english, but noone heard. So we talked in all available languages completely mixed up, even sometimes I'm talking english and someone translated it to english for the patient who responded in somewhat german which promptly was translated to english for me. Simply great comedy! Until I threw both translators our of my station (after beeing properly treated, though). Such things only happen on Oktoberfest.

@Vorenus: It's that strange mix of patients and emotions which make working there fun. Plus a lot of pretty girls.

[Just Plain Ruff]

I see it now. European EMT City get together.

I have enough frequent flyer miles rightnow to get there but not get home. I also have enough hotel points and car rental points to stay in a 5 star hotel with an extra attached room.

anyone want to set this up?

[systemet]

Munich is a great city! I had a fantastic time when I visited.

Germans know beer and good food. Enough said.