50% rise in accident cases on Holi, 24 kids hurt in separate cases
402 ACCIDENT CASES WERE REPORTED IN AIIMS ON MONDAY, AGAINST THE AVERAGE OF 100150 REPORTED ON A DAILY BASIS
Accident cases more than doubled in Delhi on the Holi day, with the All India Institute of Medical Sciences’ (AIIMS) Trauma Centre getting 402 cases on Monday. Of the total accident victims, 24 were children.
A majority were assault victims, followed by road traffic accident victims and those who had a bad fall.
On an average, the hospital gets between 100 and 150 accident cases in a day. Among road traffic accident and assault victims more than 50% were drunk.
“A large percentage of the drunk injured had either been stabbed or were involved in a scuffle. The rest were drunk driving,” said a senior doctor at the hospital.
Of the 402 cases, 333 were men and 69 were women. More than 300 cases were medico-legal cases as the victims were brought in by the police. Close to 40% victims were between the age group of 21-30 years. Sixtyfive people were between the age group of 13-20 years, and 15 cases were 60 years and above.
Thirty-six people were critically injured and needed surgery, and most of the surgeries were neurosurgeries as the victims sustained head injury.
“Holi is a chemical disaster, as we don’t know what the person has been exposed to. Chemicals like copper sulphate mixed in colours are highly toxic, and also pose the risk of secondary contamination to health workers,” said the doctor in the hospital emergency.
The hospital authorities deployed additional staff to handle the rush of patients. A separate area was assigned for people who only required dressing, stitches and pain medication.
Even the private hospitals saw unusually large number of cases in their emergency department. “In the past 24 hours, we received 26 Holi-related injuries. As compared to the last year there has been a rise of 8% in the injury cases, when we received 18 injured,” said Dr Anand Bansal, medical director, Sri Balaji Action Medical Institute.