West Midlands Ambulance Service Expecting Busy New Year's Eve
31 December 2014, 06:00
West Midlands Ambulance service have told Heart they're expecting New Year's Eve to be even busier than Mad Friday when people went out having finished work before Christmas.
One hundred and ten people were treated by paramedics during that weekend and a pop-up injury unit's again being set up on Birmingham's Broad Street.
The number of people needing treatment after getting drunk in the city is so high that a field hospital also has to be set up in Birmingham's Central Library to deal with the busiest nights of the year.
The idea is to reduce the number of people having to call 999 and needing to be taken to the main hospitals.
Our reporter Mike Perkins went out with Paramedic Mike Duggan from West Midlands Ambulance service to find out how they cope with one of their busiest nights of the year.
He told Heart: "At 2 o'clock we tend to peak quite drastically lots of people drunk.
"There's occasionally some shouting, some people can be aggressive towards us, even though we're just trying to help them and the smell can often be quite horrific really as people can often loose control of their bodily functions just through drinking too much.
"A regular thing is we quite often arrive to people who might have been told by one of the bars locally they'll be here within the next five minutes just wait for them and they'll sort you out.
"It's quite often we're approached literally as we arrive with people who've sustained some sort of minor injury that requires our assistance.
"Some people the only state I can describe them in is dangerous.
"The only message we can keep reiterating really is try to keep yourself safe, stay with your friends, no your limits and pace yourself."