Recovery Michigan

Last October, just before Halloween, a “mass-casualty event” befell the emergency department at Lansing’s Sparrow Hospital. Staff put incoming patients in every bed, gurney and wheelchair that could be found. A hallway was turned into a ward, patients lined head-to-toe against the walls, a nurse assigned to move up and down the line, checking airways to ensure none were in imminent danger.

Over 200 patients bombarded the ER in a three-hour period, pushing it into Code Yellow status, meaning only heart attack and stroke patients could add to the caseload.

It wasn’t a plane crash or mile-long pileup on I-96 that fueled this emergency, but the annual football rivalry between the University of Michigan Wolverines and the Michigan State University Spartans. The patients, to a man and woman, were drunk; so drunk they needed medical attention to ensure they didn’t die.

The overserved can overwhelm hospitals during football season in Michigan’s legendary college football towns, taking staff attention away from broken limbs and tender appendixes.

For the Michigan home opener Sept. 12, 22 patients with alcohol-related health conditions were seen in the department at the University of Michigan Health System.

Dr. Jeffrey Desmond, interim chief medical officer at U-M’s hospital, likes to say that, unlike most football fans, he yearns for unpleasant conditions on days when the Big House is roaring: “I hope for not-very-exciting games, held early, and in bad weather. It makes a huge difference for the emergency department.”