Fractures, firecrackers and "champagne in the eye": a doctor described how residents of Kirov are injured on New Year's Eve

      The head of the trauma unit of emergency care at the Center for Traumatology, Orthopedics and Neurosurgery, Sergey Karavaev, who has worked as a trauma surgeon for 20 years, spoke about his experience of night shifts from December 31 to January 1 — he has done four of them.

      According to him, the first hours of the new year most often involve typical winter injuries: patients arrive after falls on the street, sledding and walks on slippery paths. "Most often they break ankles, shins (tibias) and the radius," the doctor says. Burns from firecrackers are not uncommon, while the "classic" New Year's injury — a contused eye from a champagne cork — is usually treated in the ophthalmology department.

      Closer to dawn, Karavaev notes, the picture changes — criminal injuries appear, sometimes requiring open surgeries. "Once on a New Year's shift I performed three laparotomies," he recalls.

      He also told of an unusual case: several years ago a patient with a fractured femur came to Kirov from the Oparinsky District… by taxi. The man covered about 180 kilometers, sitting in a cramped car and "numbing the pain with a strong drink," and miraculously arrived without complications. That same evening he was operated on.

      Karavaev wished his colleagues endurance during the long holiday shifts, and urged everyone else to be careful: "Observe simple safety measures. Let the holiday not end in a hospital."