Boating, attending picnics, hitting the beach. All are common Independence Day activities. Another one: drinking alcohol. And hospital emergency rooms prepare for that as Fourth of July revelers start hitting the roads.
Federal statistics show a sharp rise from June to July in bad drunken driving crashes. The jump is owing in large part to what is usually a long, Fourth of July weekend that features hot weather.
That can make for a deadly combination of excessive drinking over a long period of time. The base problem with excessive drinking is that it reduces risk-perception and that leads to poor judgment, such as getting behind the wheel when drunk, or going swimming after a few, or operating a boat under the influence.
These situations, unfortunately, lead to horrible consequences seen each year. With that in mind, Massachusetts General Hospital's Emergency Department tells Boston 25 News they are not "holiday staffing" for this holiday.
"There are some holidays where we might staff the Emergency Department a little lighter... things like Thanksgiving... or Christmas... but holidays like the Fourth of July we make sure we staff just as highly as our busiest days because of the fact that we know people are going to get injured," said Dr. Ali Raja, MD, MBA, Mass. General.
Raja says alcohol ingestion complicates the treatment of patients who come in. For one thing, it's difficult to get a coherent history on patients who are drunk and it's hard to safely give them painkillers.
>> Operation Dry Water: Coast Guard cracking down on drunken, high boating
Cox Media Group
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/7QOJU3BNCJERBNKJC5LWTBYFLU.png)
