EDINBURGHS HOGMANAY CELEBRATIONS - BEYOND A MAJOR DISASTER

Objective-To assess the impact of Edinburgh's Hogmanay celebrations on the city's accident and emergency (A&E) service. Methods-Retrospectiv e analysis. Results-A crowd estimated at more than 350 000 attended th e celebrations. During the three day period between 00.01 h on 31 Dece mber and 23.59 h on 2 January, 1151 new patients presented to the A&E department and of these half arrived in the first 24 hours. Thirty six patients required emergency resuscitation and eight died in the depar tment during the study period. Conclusions-The absolute number of pati ents presenting during the study period greatly exceeded most of the ' 'major disasters'' in contemporary UK experience. No deaths were direc tly attributable to the event, but the spectrum of patient pathologies , their severity and presentation is analogous to several recent major incidents. It is doubtful whether the Hogmanay celebrations are safe.