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All that ice and snow this winter has sent a steady stream of fall victims to New Jersey's emergency rooms. (Star-Ledger file photo)
It has been a real slip-and-fall winter, a frigid season so unrelenting that by now, the average front walk could host rehearsals for Disney on Ice.
All that ice and snow has sent a steady stream of victims to the region's emergency rooms.
"I must've heard the same story a dozen times: 'I opened the door, took one step and fell,'" reported Marjory Langer, Director of the Emergency Department at HackensackUMC Mountainside in Montclair/Glen Ridge.
She said she ended up going into work every Sunday in January just to help her staff with the deluge of patients. At times, she said, the emergency room was so full it looked as if some kind of natural disaster had happened nearby.
"I saw patients in every nook and cranny we have," she said. "The amount of injuries I saw was staggering."
Hospitals reported broken or fractured wrists and forearms, twisted knees, dislocated elbows and shoulders, cracked clavicles, broken hips, concussions, and back strains from all that sudden twisting.
Unfortunately, black ice doesn't come with its own warning sign. (Photo by SafetySign.com)
Although people generally associate the risk of falling with old age, that isn't necessarily the case in bad weather, Langer said. The elderly usually have the good sense to stay indoors when the weather turns icy. It's younger people who typically venture out to continue their activities.
"I got out of the car, turned around, and kind of went down," said 23-year-old Hannah Johnson of Mays Landing, whose fall sent her to an urgent care facility when her ankle still hurt two days later.
She said can't take time off from her full-time job and college studies, so she's hobbling around in a plastic splint and surgical shoe.
In Elizabeth, however, Mercy Mallari, director of nursing for the emergency department of Trinitas Regional Medical Center, said they'd seen elderly shut-ins patients who had fallen trying to shovel their front walks.
"I had the cutest little old lady in here. She said, 'I wasn't going to shovel the whole walkway, just a little bit for the mailman.' She fell on the last step, and had this huge gash on her forehead," Mallari said.
Ice has been an equal-opportunity threat, with Mallari reporting she's seen two men in their forties with broken hips this winter.
"All that ice and snow removal from driveways and roofs have also been bringing back strain and sciatica exacerbations to our doors, as well as snow blower injuries to hands and fingers," said Borislav Stoev, chairman of emergency medicine at Saint Peter's University Hospital in New Brunswick.
Falls account for over eight million hospital ER visits a year - the largest single category accounting for more than a fifth of all visits, she said, quoting statistics from the Emergency Nurses Association.
"The biggest complicating factor now is people who happen to be on any kind of blood thinner," said Thomas Brabson, chairman of emergency services for AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center in Atlantic City. "They're at risk not only for the injury they suffer, but more importantly, if they hit their head, they're more prone for bleeding."
Such patients often have to be admitted to the hospital and watched to make sure there isn't any delayed cranial bleeding.
Eric Bachenheimer developed a data base to track weather-related ER visits. His firm, Emergency Medical Associates, staffs and manages the emergency departments at roughly 25 percent of New Jersey's hospitals, including Bayshore Community Hospital, Capital Health, Clara Maass Medical Center, Jersey City Medical Center, Monmouth Medical Center, Morristown Medical Center, Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Somerset, Saint Barnabas Medical Center and St. Joseph's Wayne Hospital.
His numbers show this winter has driven less traffic to the emergency room than last winter - mostly because this past December had very little ice or snow.
The data he has collected has shown that people don't head out in a storm to get an injury examined. Instead, they hunker down until the storm has passed - then descend on the ER.
"Cold, snow or hurricane...on average, people will tend to wait on their illness or injury until the snow subsides," he said.
One risk to keep an eye on is a possible concussion from striking one's head in a fall, said Langer. Symptoms include headaches, dizziness, depression or mood changes, or blurred vision.
"What people don't realize is that although you have some of the symptoms on Day one, they may progress and you'll have those symptoms during the week," she said.
Despite the known risk, people persist in heading out into bad weather, said Brabson. "We're just living in a society where people are running on such a tight agency, so they usually can't take a break and feel they have to be out and about," he said.
Kathleen O'Brien may be reached at kobrien@njadvancemedia.com, or at (732) 902-4557. Follow her on Twitter @OBrienLedger. Find NJ.com on Facebook.