Happy New Year!! Almost as dangerous as Iraq.....somehow Bush is to blame for this, no doubt.
Wayward revellers keep trauma centre busy
By Nina Muslim, Staff Reporter
gulfnews.com
Dubai: A night of fun took a wrong turn for some New Year revellers who found themselves victims of traffic accidents and assault, although the cases did not peak as emergency staff originally feared.
In the first five hours of 2007, Rashid Hospital Trauma Centre saw 22 cases, including three critical cases from three separate road accidents, and plus some falls and spills. Many of the cases were believed to be alcohol-related.
Victims started coming in at 2.30am with the first being an assault case, which left a Briton badly bruised. The first major traffic accident victims came in at 2.45am, from a three-car collision on Baniyas Road, according to police and hospital staff.
The driver of a vehicle sustained severe injuries to his head and chest when his vehicle overturned. A family of seven from Kenya, including two children, was in the taxi. Two were moderately injured, while others sustained light injuries. The taxi driver was slightly injured.
One of the victims, Payal Shah, was shaken up and angry that reckless driving has derailed her family's first holiday in Dubai. "We just arrived in Dubai. The taxi driver was bad the way he braked, the way he changed lanes," she said.
A South African man came in at 3.25am, an apparent assault victim, followed by a Lebanese woman five minutes later. She had taken a tumble and injured herself, believed to be due to intoxication. Two middle-aged women had also come in with injuries from a fall.
At 3.55am, paramedics brought in victims from another traffic accident, in which a housemaid from Sri Lanka was severely injured. The car had flipped over on Shaikh Zayed Road for unknown reasons. The accident also left a man and two teenagers injured.
A woman, who arrived with severe head injuries, was the last traffic accident victim at 5.30am.
Dr Sabri Al Nadhari, specialist registrar at the centre, told Gulf News that 2 cases in five and a half hours of a new year was low, although he was thankful that the number of victims during New Year's celebrations this year did not reach a peak as originally feared.
"The number of code red patients we received tonight is within the normal range. Drivers are more aware and careful this year, I think. It's a good start to the year," he said.
Woman kicked out of car by husband
By 5.30am, police officers on duty at Rashid Hospital Trauma Centre recorded eight assault cases, including a woman whose husband allegedly hit her before kicking her out of their car on Shaikh Zayed Road.
First Lt. Ali Abdullah Khamis Al Noury of the Dubai Police Rescue Department who brought the woman, crying and with a bloody nose, into the Trauma Centre, told Gulf News that she had walked out of the blue and asked him for help. "We were at an accident site and she came asking for help. I thought at first that she was one of the victims. But she said no and said that her husband had hit her," he said.
"She said they were fighting in the car. He hit her in the face and then threw her out of the car, without her keys, her purse or money," he continued.
The woman, who filed a complaint with the police, was too upset to talk to Gulf News.
Police officers on duty told Gulf News that the number of assault cases in the New Year was lower compared to previous years.
Road death
A pedestrian died, while another is in critical condition, all victims of traffic accidents. Rashid Hospital Trauma Centre received 41 accident and assault cases on the last day of 2006.
Twenty-two other accident victims were treated, of which ten were admitted for fractures, including a 12-year-old boy, who was struck down by a motorbike.
Police officers on duty at the centre told Gulf News that the figure was not high, considering it was the last day of the year and during a long holiday.
"It's normal. We received 65 cases from a Shaikh Zayed Road accident [involving two labour buses] and that is only one accident," said Omar Ahmad, one of the police officers on duty. |
