Anyone do medical coverage for sports events?

[Dustdevil]

Okay, I would agree with all that. I'm not against sports standbys, so long as they are willing to pay for it. And I don't think it sends a "wussification" message to the kids, lol. My only point for jumping into the discussion was to point out that the main reason we go to pro-sports is because most cities large enough to have a pro sports team also have an ordinance requiring EMS for crowds that large. Although, the players union probably has some kinda deal in their contract that they won't play without EMS immediately available either. I wonder. But I don't think it's because somebody at city hall decided that pro football players were more important than kids.

[Scaramedic]

I agree with Dust, in cities I have worked standbys are because of crowd size and not the sport. To give you an idea I once worked with a Fire-Medic friend of mine for his brothers grad party on a river cruise. There were over 1,000 people and they needed Medics on standby. Easy duty and a nice River Cruise, not to mention freshly legal hotties. :wink:

[firespec35]

90% of the events I work are because of crowd size. Do you really think an ambulance is needed at a rib cookoff. NO not really, not until there are 30,000 people a day running around in a contained area. I was just making the point that there have been people who have contacted us mainly for the players.

[murphy]

Yeah I have done some. Your time between accident s can be long so bring your patience. Take your own supplies that you can trust and keep tape and water handy. For adventure races, remember to use your surroundings to your advantage. Read up on some wilderness first aid for slings and stretchers etc. (depending on how exactly remote you'll be) and encourage everyone that goes by you. I ran a marathon a while back and I know first hand how defeated you can feel, up until some perfect starnger cheers you on!

[Timmy]

I’ve never heard of paramedics standing by at a high school football match. But hey, if they wana hand over 2 grand for a few hours then go right ahead.

I work as a sports trainer. We generally have about 80 football players in 4 different age groups play over an 8 hour period. Over the 19 Saturday games we play I called about 12 ambulances this season. There was only one patient that needed an ambulance there an then (unresponsive, spinal w/ CSF coming from ears) other than that everyone else we could handle till the parameds arrived. Our pro football games always have a non emerg ambo for players but their stabilized by the team doctors before paramedics are allowed to touch.

The weekend just gone I was on a first aid team for a horse racing event. The actual track has 2 non emerg ambulances and a few doctors for the jockeys. In the crowd of 40,000 we had 30 first aiders, 5 nurses and 2 teams of state paramedics/MICAs. We treated 80 patients sending 5 to hospital and the track had nothing, in fact in the 2 hours that went completely pear shaped the doctors from the track came into help and they called extra state paramedics.

Even with amateur speedway and drag racing chances of any of the riders/drivers getting hurt is slim but when it does their normally hurt pretty seriously. But you’re more likely to get stuff in the crowd.

In my experience Motocross is different. I’ve worked about 90 motocross races and maybe treated 5 people from the crowd and maybe hundreds from the track.

[JakeEMTP]

Our County squads are on standby at all ECU ( local university ) football games. There is one ambulance at every corner of the stadium. The crowds are usually around 42,000, most of them students who have gotten into the full tailgating experience, the others are patrons who wish they were still in school :wink:. We on average tend to 9-10 injuries or illnesses in our corner. This past wknd we sent 2 to hospital. Most can be treated on scene and released.

Lat week we couldn't get a " gentleman " to go to hospital when he obviously needed some stitches to his hand. He wanted to stay until the end of the game :roll:. The MD on scene had him sign a treatment, no transport form and that was that.

Oh well, at least he was living up to the ECU student motto, " Win or Lose, We will booze" Our next standby is downtown Greenville on Halloween night. Always a good time had by all. Makes for a busy night however. Gotta love working in a College town. 8)

[reaper]

Thanks for the good responses. The race was last weekend and all went well.

The county I work for does send dedicated units to the HS games. It is all PR fluff.

We also cover two major colleges in town. FB games are around 80-85k people. They always suck to work them. Mostly stupid drunks!!

[zippyRN]

Timmy's list sounds spot on to me. Here are a few of the things I would add to think about...

timmy's list sounds good to me as well

Are you there with an agency? If not, who is your medical director and how are you covered legally should something fubar? How many of you are staffing this? What's the weather supposed to be like? Plan accordingly for yourselves and your patients.

spot on

also does the event have a med dir / hon. MO ?

quite a lot of events we provide ambulance cover for have their own Docs / seperate arrangements, after we got caught out we now ask for the professional registration number of any health professional supplied by the event unless we know theindividual personally or it's one of our 'preferred ' contractors ...

What will your outside transporting agency be should the need arise? Do you and they know how communication is going to work? Do you have a transportation mechanism set up, either a good offroad worthy vehicle (that fits a backboard, with restraint capabilities for you and the patient) or a really good foot team with a vehicle rendezvous point nearby?

valid points

Water source? Restrooms? Who is feeding you? How many people are you prepared to treat with what you have, and what will you do if those limits get exceeded quickly?

Climate controlled area available for hypothermia/heat exhaustion/allergy issues? If not, how will you compensate? Got enough O2 equipment to treat respiratory/cardiac problems should they arise?

all valid points

also do you have fall back arrangements for things like oxygen ...

Since this is an endurance thing, make sure you have plenty of ace bandages or the like for sprained ankles, access to ice packs of some sort (coolers full of ice and a box of ziplocs will work wonders...) and good blister treating supplies. If you like moleskin, you want some of that. If you don't (like me) then some good nonstick gauze and some creative taping skills. Duct tape works well for "hot spots."

some events of this nature include podiatrists and physios i nthe event medical team

Make sure you can talk to your team members and to the race officials- whether it's cell phones, radios or pagers. Make sure it WORKS, the second you get to the event, so you can adjust if something isn't working right.

Good luck! Let us know how it all turns out. These kind of things can be super fun to do med support at.

Wendy

CO EMT-B

wrt comms - if you havea 'repeater in a trailer' type set up this is ideal for these kindof events as you can optimise location and and the antenna rigging for the geography

[zippyRN]

I’ve never heard of paramedics standing by at a high school football match. But hey, if they wana hand over 2 grand for a few hours then go right ahead.

Hiogh school and uni Sports seems to have a far bigger pull in the US than it does elsewhere .. but then again look at the NBA, NFL and top line professional baseball - limited numbers of franchised teams vs say the Uk (soccer) professional and semi -pro football leagues - 5 leagues wwith truely locally based teams ( the only team that's moved more than a couple of miles is the old Wimbledon now MK Dons ) 110 or so teams just in Soccer

then there's both codes of rugby and the County cricket cicrcuits - a lot more access to 'professional' sports

I work as a sports trainer. We generally have about 80 football players in 4 different age groups play over an 8 hour period. Over the 19 Saturday games we play I called about 12 ambulances this season. There was only one patient that needed an ambulance there an then (unresponsive, spinal w/ CSF coming from ears) other than that everyone else we could handle till the parameds arrived. Our pro football games always have a non emerg ambo for players but their stabilized by the team doctors before paramedics are allowed to touch.

when you look at the gates for some high school and definitely college teams in the US they are comparable with lower and mid flight professional soccer gates in the Uk and some of the really big college teams in the US have as much if not more pull than professional games so you have the morbidity and mortality of the spectators as a much more relevant factor in cover calculations

The weekend just gone I was on a first aid team for a horse racing event. The actual track has 2 non emerg ambulances and a few doctors for the jockeys. In the crowd of 40,000 we had 30 first aiders, 5 nurses and 2 teams of state paramedics/MICAs. We treated 80 patients sending 5 to hospital and the track had nothing, in fact in the 2 hours that went completely pear shaped the doctors from the track came into help and they called extra state paramedics.

sounds aobut par for the course in everythign except club / semi-pro motorsport particuarly bikes and side cars where the offs are a big part of the 'fun' - equally banger racing can be fun as well from that point of view

Even with amateur speedway and drag racing chances of any of the riders/drivers getting hurt is slim but when it does their normally hurt pretty seriously. But you’re more likely to get stuff in the crowd.

In my experience Motocross is different. I’ve worked about 90 motocross races and maybe treated 5 people from the crowd and maybe hundreds from the track.

motocross is very very different ...

[ExplorerShane]

I don't think sports events require the attention of paramedics and a rig. Why not send out CFRs under the supervision of an EMT. Each can carry a radio and a BLS bag, and if it gets over their head, they can radio for a rig while providing BLS treatment on the patient.