BLOC PARTY - FESTIVAL DOCTORS NURSE FANS THROUGH TEXTING

FESTIVAL DOCTORS NURSE FANS THROUGH TEXTING

Sending a text message to your friends after being hurt at a music festival can signify that you're free to leave treatment, a new report states.

Staff from the Festival Medical Services charity found that the majority of patients who had fainted or suffered a panic attack while at a festival were likely to text their friends as soon as they possibly could.

And following research into the matter, the charity has been able to greatly enhance its efficiency when dealing with patients taken ill during a festival.

Sending a text message, whether it makes sense or not, requires full consciousness and a high degree of dexterity and coordination and can thus be used as an indication that patients have recovered and can return to the festival, the authors explained.

"It also shows a degree of common sense not always evident in teenagers," added lead author Mike Sinclair, a retired consultant anaesthetist.

"This year at the Reading festival we managed, with only one consultant anaesthetist, two accident and emergency nurses, one operating department practitioner, and two to four first aiders, to treat 142 patients in less than 60 minutes during the performance by Bloc Party and 130 patients over 90 minutes during the performance by Rage Against the Machine," he commented.

The article, published in the Christmas issue of the BMJ Online journal, calls for further research into the 'text messaging sign' as a valid sign of recovery following fainting and panic attacks and its potential for use in overloaded A&E departments.