Several Kansas City Chiefs fans who attended a playoff game on a cold January day in Missouri suffered frostbite that required amputations, according to the hospital that treated them.
A dozen people — including some football fans inside Arrowhead Stadium on Jan. 13 — had to undergo amputations involving 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 an 11-day cold spell. Not all amputation patients attended the Chiefs game. Some were people working outdoors in the extreme cold, the hospital said.
The exact number of fans who attended the match who had amputations was unclear. The hospital said there was some overlap between the fans and those who had also worked outdoors.
The hospital also noted that frostbite symptoms can develop slowly, and that many of the frostbiteers it treated could not recognize when their injuries happened — when the pain, numbness and other symptoms began.
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, starting Jan. 6, with arctic air pouring into the plains.
“Our specialist doctors and specialist care team continue to treat and monitor patients’ healing to address long-term needs and we expect more surgeries over the next two to four weeks as their injuries progress,” the hospital said.
At kickoff between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Miami Dolphins, temperatures hovered around minus 4 degrees, with a wind chill of minus 26 degrees.
Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes’ helmet split open during a tackle, a malfunction that the helmet’s 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 came in with frostbite injuries had to be scheduled for amputation surgeries after weeks in the hospital.
Treatment included rewarming the injured areas, applying antibiotics and thrombolytic therapy to dissolve blood clots and restore circulation, and hyperbaric oxygen therapy to boost oxygen to the injured areas to reduce swelling.
Frostbite patients experience “lifelong sensitivity and pain,” Dr. Garcia said, “and will always be more susceptible to frostbite in the future.”
During the cold snap in January, the medical center’s parent company posted information about frostbite on its website, warning that it can occur within minutes of skin exposure to freezing air and less time with wind chill.
People working outside during the winter were particularly vulnerable, the hospital said in its statement, as were people “attending football matches, the elderly, pregnant women and children waiting at bus stops to return to school”.
Frostbite occurs at “extremely low temperatures,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with injury often occurring during the thawing process as blood vessels are damaged by clots and inflammation, throttling 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, New York, said the hospital treats three to five patients for frostbite each winter.
After being given medication to expand blood vessels and create new tissue, patients undergo a bone scan, he said.
“Sometimes it can take days, sometimes weeks, to make a decision that someone needs an amputation,” he said. “When somebody shows up in the ER that first day, there’s no way to predict.”
Instead, he added, members of the medical staff monitor how the tissue develops. If the tissue does not regenerate, it becomes infected and then amputation is necessary, he said.
Prolonged exposure to cold also puts people at risk of hypothermia, a sudden drop in body temperature, and lung conditions such as pneumonia.
A spokesman for the Kansas City Chiefs did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday.
Cold weather is often a feature of NFL games, where fans bundle up but sometimes strip down, going shirtless to stand out in the crowd.
The coldest game on record in NFL history was the 1967 Ice Bowl, when the Green Bay Packers defeated the Dallas Cowboys in a New Year’s Eve game. Temperatures in Wisconsin were minus 13 degrees at the start.
