As shoveling begins, Long Island hospitals see more orthopedic injuries, chest pains

As Long Islanders emerged from their homes to dig out from the massive snowstorm, hospitals began seeing a spike in back injuries from shoveling, wrist and knee injuries from slipping and falling on the ice, and chest pains from overexertion.

“The biggest one and the most major thing that we see is an increase in the number of heart attacks right after a storm,” said Dr. Peter McKenna, medical director of the Stony Brook University Hospital emergency department, where doctors saw several people Monday arrive after having heart attacks. “People go outside into the cold and they shovel heavy snow, and it's the most physical activity that they've done all year. And they kind of fail their own stress test.”

The cold increases the risk, said Dr. John Mathew, associate chief medical officer at Catholic Health’s St. Joseph’s Hospital in Bethpage.

“Cold weather constricts blood vessels and raises blood pressure,” he said in an email. “When you combine that with sudden heavy exertion, especially in people with underlying heart disease, it can trigger a cardiac event.”

If you feel chest pressure, shortness of breath or unusual fatigue, call 911, he said.

“Your driveway is not worth your life,” Mathew said.

Chest pains or shortness of breath from shoveling may be early warnings of narrowing arteries that could eventually lead to a heart attack, said Dr. Frederick Davis, executive vice chair of emergency medicine at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park. Tests during emergency department evaluations can reveal cardiac risks, he said.

Much of what emergency department doctors see during snowstorms are “very preventable injuries,” Mathew said.

“We get a lot of slip and falls,” McKenna said. “People go outside and they rush. They don't use handrails. Or they're working on their stairs and can’t see the ice.”

Suffolk County Fire, Rescue and Emergency Services, law enforcement and fire departments “assisted multiple residents trapped in their cars on their way to work,” said Rudy Sunderman, commissioner of the agency, which handles dispatches for about three-quarters of the county’s volunteer fire departments and emergency medical services.

These essential workers ran into snow drifts or veered off the roads, he said.

Hospital officials said Monday they had seen few injuries related to car accidents, amid emergency travel bans — but that would probably change as drivers disentomb their cars from the snow and get on the roads.

“We start seeing more car accidents as people trek out and start skidding and, unfortunately, get into accidents,” said Dr. Jay Itzkowitz, clinical chair of emergency medicine at Mount Sinai South Nassau hospital in Oceanside.

Some hospital employees arrived late to work because of the snowy, icy roads, Itzkowitz said. Others stayed the night at the hospital to avoid traveling, he said.

The travel difficulties during snowstorms lead to emergency department visits not directly related to the snow, Davis said. People may have missed taking medications because deliveries were interrupted. People with kidney disease may not have received dialysis. And residents wait out the storm before going to the hospital for a variety of conditions.