Doctor on New Year's Eve service: "You can't usually sew on a finger that has been blown off"
Created: 12/31/2022 10:49 am
By: Max Mueller
Hands are particularly at risk when firecrackers are fired.
© Gottfried Czepluch/imago
Firecrackers until the doctor comes: New Year's Eve is no fun for clinics.
Head physician Dietmar Pennig has worked in a hospital for 40 years and knows how stressful the last shift of the year is.
Cologne – Dietmar Pennig, 67, has been retired for a year.
The doctor can look back on 40 years of experience at university and specialist clinics in Germany - in the specialist departments of trauma surgery, hand surgery and orthopaedics.
Most recently, Pennig was chief physician at the St. Vinzenz Hospital in Cologne.
He is Secretary General of the German Society for Trauma Surgery.
Professor Pennig, in a few hours the big bang will start.
What does this mean for the hospitals?
New Year's Eve is on a Saturday this year.
This is rather unfavorable, because clinics are sewn to the edge on weekends anyway.
In Germany, emergency care is distributed among various contact points.
If someone needs to be operated on with complex injuries, a total of 260 emergency departments are available as expanded and fully licensed.
That is not much.
After all, we have to feed 83 million people.
In addition, more and more clinics are withdrawing from emergency care because the high upfront costs are not covered and it is ultimately too stressful.
It's not just firecrackers that are fired up on New Year's Eve: champagne corks fly into the eye, fights escalate.
Champagne corks in the eye are not only available on New Year's Eve, this is a year-round classic.
We also treat the aftermath of fights every weekend.
I would rule that out.
One thing is clear: New Year's Eve is one of the most difficult services of the year.
Fireworks injuries add to the usual "party throes".
In addition, of course, we also have the normal "business" on December 31st: traffic accidents, accidents at work or accidents in the household.
In clinics, all of this goes through a central emergency room.
How exhausting is the New Year's Eve service in the emergency room?
Very exhausting.
For this we are dependent on external influences.
If it rains on New Year's Eve, there are fewer emergencies because people don't fire as much.
But if it is dry, you can assume that a specialist clinic will receive 50 to 60 additional emergencies who have been injured by fireworks.
Temperatures are currently up to 20 degrees.
We'll have to wait and see, we'll know more on January 1st.
also read
"Perverse" and a "shame": frightening picture from the ski area causes horror
READ
Food trend winter barbecues: simple, delicious, unforgettable
READ
If you find 20 euros or more on the street, it is better to keep your hands off it
READ
"The Internet will soon disappear": Expert predicts the end of the World Wide Web
READ
You missed these pictures in December 2022!
READ
Fancy a voyage of discovery?
My space
Doctor on the dangers of firecrackers: "This affects children in particular"
Why are there so many emergencies on New Year's Eve?
The biggest problem is alcohol.
People get cocky - and hurt themselves.
Courage tests are held.
What is particularly shocking to us: Time and again it also hits completely uninvolved people.
How often has it happened that people come to us who have been shot at by a fallen rocket battery.
What are typical injuries?
Many injuries occur from holding fireworks while they are burning.
Sometimes they explode there too.
There are also facial injuries.
We know from the eye clinics that around 200 additional injuries occur nationwide on New Year's Eve because fireworks fly into the eye.
That's a lot - and by no means every injury is treated.
Another problem is bang trauma, which affects children in particular because their ears are very sensitive.
The dramatic thing is: we are not talking about cases where we put on a bandage and wish a speedy recovery.
This is often irreparable damage.
You can usually no longer sew on a finger that has been blown off.
The fireworks lobby says: The majority of injuries occur with non-certified fireworks. Can you confirm?
Hard to say.
We do not ask the patients whether the corresponding fireworks have a CE certification.
The material can easily be ordered online from abroad.
I find the discussion about which fireworks the problem is pointless.
In addition, the lobby says: hospitals are overloaded anyway.
It's true: the hospitals are on the attack.
But that doesn't make it any better.
If December 31st were a normal working day, we would save one of the most stressful shifts of the year.
Do doctors and nurses try to have time off at all costs?
No, I never had to decide that by Ordre de Mufti either.
However, we are at the breaking point.
Sometimes you had to call people who were actually free.
But that works somehow.
Basically there are always two groups.
One works on Christmas, the other on New Year's Eve.
When someone is on duty depends primarily on whether he or she has children.
Before my wife and I had children - she is also a doctor - we always worked at Christmas.
Chief physician Dietmar Pennig is against a ban on firecrackers.
© Intercongress
About IPPEN.MEDIA
The IPPEN.MEDIA network is one of the largest online publishers in Germany.
At the locations in Berlin, Hamburg/Bremen, Munich, Frankfurt, Cologne, Stuttgart and Vienna, journalists from our central editorial office research and publish for more than 50 news offers.
These include brands such as Münchner Merkur, Frankfurter Rundschau and BuzzFeed Germany.
Our news, interviews, analyzes and comments reach more than 5 million people in Germany every day.
"Anyone who wants to ban firecrackers should also limit carnival and Oktoberfest"
You worked in Cologne for 30 years. Is New Year's Eve comparable to carnival?
It's similar in terms of stress, but there are different challenges.
On Weiberfastnacht, for example, we need additional cleaning staff because all the dirt is carried in from outside.
In addition, well, people relieve themselves and lose control of their bodily functions.
It feels like more alcohol is being drunk there.
In any case, there is one important difference.
Which?
The time component.
At carnival, the first booby corpses are brought in in the morning - and that goes on all day.
On New Year's Eve, it backs up in the hours after midnight, when most of the rockets and firecrackers are fired.
On the morning of January 1st there is a second wave of emergencies, for example when children want to light up firecrackers and injure themselves.
Should firecrackers be banned in principle?
No, we don't live in North Korea.
Public festivals are part of our lives.
If you want to ban firecrackers, you should be consistent and also restrict the Oktoberfest or carnival.
From the perspective of the hospitals, I can only encourage all pyromaniacs: handle fireworks responsibly.
