Emergency rooms see rise in ice-related injuries

BOSTON -- Boston area hospitals have seen a dramatic increase in the number of people coming into emergency rooms with weather-related injuries.

An ice storm last week left roads, sidewalks and driveways covered with a thick layer of rock hard ice, and turned sledding slopes into luge runs.

Boston Medical Center has treated about 40 people with ice-related injuries in the past week. Massachusetts General Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center have treated about 30 people per day who have fallen on the ice. Newton-Wellesley Hospital has treated 20 to 30 people a day since last Wednesday's storm.

Hospital officials say the numbers are about twice as high as during a normal winter week.

"We've seen a dramatic increase," said Dr. Ron Walls, chairman of emergency medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital. "The reason is the ice is just so slick."

Hospitals have had to deal with broken wrists, fractured legs, cracked ribs and head injuries.

Severe injuries to a 39-year-old woman sledding at the Mount Hood Golf Course in Melrose prompted the town to close the park to sledders over the weekend. They were back this week, school vacation week.

"It's just treacherous," said Capt. Ed Collina of the Melrose Fire Department. "Anybody sledding has absolutely no control of themselves. They're at the whim of the slope. Even if you're walking and you slip and fall it's like hitting concrete."

Sen. Steven C. Panagiotakos, D-Lowell, said he will propose a law requiring children under 13 who ski or sled to wear helmets.

"Most kids ride bikes, so almost every kid has a bicycle helmet and they could use that for sledding, too," Panagiotakos said. "It's not like it's an extra cost to the family."

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)