HELLO 2012
Trauma ward staff pop only a few balloons as cops and rain damp festive revelry
IN WARD 163 of Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital, New Year’s Eve was spent popping balloons, one at a time.
There was nothing festive when one of the balloons strung across the entrance was popped. The act marked another successful resuscitation in the trauma ward.
It is a tradition with the doctors, nurses, paramedics and interns on the ward.
The record for resuscitations in one shift is 24, set during the height of the xenophobic riots of 2008.
And with Joburg’s reputation for hard partying and jolling dangerously, New Year’s Eve could just be the one night where they set a record.
Two hours into 2012, and those balloons were not popping. They had had just four “resusces”, all stab victims, since the start of the shift. Just four balloons ceremonially popped.
“It is a quiet New Year,” said Dr Freddy Maghoma. “I think it is the increased police presence that has done it.”
Maghoma and his staff had seen the usual New Year’s Eve casualties throughout the night: patients with broken lower limbs, a telltale sign, said medical student Matthew Simmons, of a pedestrian injury. Car bumpers hit legs low down, he explained.
There are also the drunks with head wounds caused by bottles.
“If SAB sold beer in plastic bottles we would have a tenth of the injuries,” said paramedic Byron Couvaras.
Then there was the one freak accident of the evening: a student, being carried piggyback by a friend, fell badly and broke his leg.
A New Year’s Eve shift wouldn’t be complete without the firecracker injuries.
There were two – a man and woman with hand injuries.
“I wanted to throw it, but it exploded,” explained the injured man. The exploding cracker had taken a chunk of flesh from the palm of his right hand; thankfully his fingers were still there.
The reason why there were fewer casualties in Ward 163 might have had something to do with the rain.
Earlier in the evening, a cloudburst spoilt the fireworks display in old Chinatown in Commissioner Street. Children took cover in one of the Chinese restaurants and would run out into the street to light fire- works. Close by on a pavement, Pumolo tried to sleep. He has lived on the streets of Joburg since 1999.
He eventually gave up and watched the fireworks display.
“Ag, dit is so baie geraas (it is such a lot of noise),” he sighed
Light years away from Pumolo and his bundle of ragged blankets on Mariam Makeba Street, the well-to-do saw in the new year at “Sushi King” Kenny Kunene’s ZAR Lounge in Sandton. As zero hour neared, patrons on the dance floor were showered with R50 notes thrown by a wealthy guest.
Revellers marked the arrival of 2012 by standing at the windows of the 12-storey nightclub and watching fireworks explode and sparkle just metres away.
In Sandton, two victims of the fireworks ran panicking into oncoming traffic on Grayston Drive.
The two German Shepherd-cross dogs couldn’t be enticed into a car and were last seen running towards the M1 highway.
Across town in Hillbrow, police officers prayed for rain.
“We have even gone to see the rain queen,” joked one. Their prayers were answered.
Rain would damp the celebrations and keep the celebrations off the street.
Notorious Hillbrow is tame these days. There was a time when journalists would hear the ping of bullets ricocheting off the armoured Nyala they were patrolling in.
Now they watched residents in opposing high-rise buildings launching firework rockets at each other. But there was still domestic violence.
A man approached the police as they gathered for their roving patrols.
He told them that his sister’s boyfriend had beaten him up. He had a missing false front tooth – it was gold, he said.
“I want my tooth back. It cost me R3 000. You must find my tooth,” he said, in tears. The cops said they would see what they could do.