Hospitals and Urgent Cares Around the Country Seeing Many Injuries This Summer
Although summer can be a time for fun, it’s also the time of year when people are more likely to get hurt. “There’s a statistically significant increase in injuries when the weather is warm,” says Dr. Terry Jodire, who works as an emergency physician at the Washington Adventist Hospital in Washington, D.C.
Many of the injury types are fairly predictable, with hot temperatures contributing to many injuries, and with the increased likelihood of physical activity brings, of course, the increased risk of falling, spraining an ankle, or breaking a bone.
Eileen Solomon, a spokesperson for Eastern Long Island Hospital in NY, says that their number one complaint in the summer is dizziness. “People in the summer often come in because they are dizzy because they didn’t hydrate properly,” she explains. Some of the injury increases, though, might not be what you expect.
“Frequency of assaults and interpersonal violence is higher than it is throughout the week. We do see that. It’s a real phenomenon,” said Dr. Robert Shessler, the Chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine at George Washington, in an interview with WTOP. Often, Shessler says, the increased level of violence is due to people being intoxicated with everything from alcohol to cocaine. “We’re beginning to see a little methamphetamine in D.C., which we had never seen before,” he says — a worrying note, perhaps, for local law enforcement.
Even road rage is on the rise, and can lead to potential injury. This past month, a 2-year-old boy in British Columbia was sprayed in the face with pepper spray after his father angered men in a passing vehicle when he yelled at them to slow down.
Although going to the emergency room in many of these situations might be someone’s first instinct, urgent cares are open and can provide a relief from the long waits and high costs of an ER visit this summer. Urgent cares can handle non-emergency issues like sprains, dizziness, and gastrointestinal problems.
