Several Kansas City Chiefs fans who attended a playoff game on a cold January day in Missouri suffered frostbite that required amputation, according to the hospital that treated them.
Twelve people – including several football fans who were at Arrowhead Stadium on Jan. 13 – had to undergo amputations of mostly fingers and toes, the hospital, Research Medical Center in Kansas City, said in a statement Saturday.
The center said it treated dozens of patients who suffered frostbite during the 11-day cold snap. Not all amputation patients attended the Chiefs game. Some were people working outside in extreme cold, the hospital said.
The exact number of fans who attended the game that had cuts is unclear. The hospital said there was some overlap between fans and those who also worked outside.
The hospital also noted that frostbite symptoms can be slow-growing, and many of the frostbite patients it treats can’t tell when their injuries happened — when their pain, numbness and other symptoms started.
The hospital said it was a record number of frostbite patients since the burn center opened 11 years ago.
The National Weather Service had warned of dangerous temperatures that week, beginning January 6, as Arctic air swept across the Plains.
“Our expert doctors and specialist care team continue to treat and monitor the recovery of patients to meet long-term needs, and we expect more surgical procedures in the next two to four weeks as their injuries are variable,” the hospital said.
At kickoff of the game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Miami Dolphins, the temperature reached minus 4 degrees, with a windchill of minus 26 degrees.
Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes’ helmet popped open during a tackle, a malfunction the helmet manufacturer said was caused by extreme cold.
Dr. Megan Garcia, the medical director of the hospital’s Grossman Burn Center, said in an interview with WDAF-TV that Chiefs fans who arrived with frostbite injuries had to schedule amputation surgeries after weeks of hospital treatment.
Treatment includes rewarming the injured area, applying antibiotics and thrombolytic therapy to dissolve blood clots and restore circulation, and hyperbaric oxygen therapy to boost oxygen to injured areas to reduce inflammation.
Patients with frostbite experience “lifelong sensitivity and pain,” says Dr. Garcia, “and will always be more susceptible to frostbite in the future.”
During the cold snap in January, the parent company posted a medical center information about frostbite on its website, warning that it can occur within minutes of skin exposure to freezing air, and to a lesser extent with cold air.
People who work outside during the winter are particularly vulnerable, the hospital said in its statement, as well as people “attending football games, the elderly, pregnant women, and children waiting at stops bus to go back to school.”
Frostbite occurs in “extremely cold temperatures,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with damage often occurring during the thawing process as the vessels are damaged by clots and inflammation, suffocating blood flow.
Although frostbite can occur anywhere on the body, it usually affects exposed areas such as the nose, ears, cheeks, chin, fingers and toes.
Julie Loving, a physician assistant in the emergency department at Adirondack Medical Center in Saranac Lake, NY, said the hospital treats three to five patients for frostbite each winter.
After administering drugs to widen blood vessels and generate new tissue, patients undergo bone scans, he said.
“Sometimes it can take days, sometimes weeks, to make a decision that someone needs amputation,” he said. “When someone shows up in the ER on the first day, there’s no way to predict.”
Instead, he added, medical staff members monitor how the tissue changes. If the tissue doesn’t regenerate, it becomes infected, and that’s when amputation is necessary, he said.
Prolonged exposure to cold weather also puts people at risk of hypothermia, a sudden drop in body temperature, and lung diseases, such as pneumonia.
A representative for the Kansas City Chiefs did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday.
Cold weather is often a feature at NFL games, where fans bundle up but sometimes strip down, shirtless to stand out in the crowd.
The coldest game ever recorded in NFL history was the Ice Bowl of 1967, when the Green Bay Packers defeated the Dallas Cowboys in a New Year’s Eve game. Temperatures in Wisconsin were minus 13 degrees at kickoff.
