In 2008, Liverpool University decided to commemorate Valentine’s Day with a festive rollerdisco party.
Little did the organizers know this party would be immortalized in a keystone piece of medical research, the 2008 paper “The University Rollerdisco: An unusual cause of a major incident” in the journal Injury Extra. According to the researchers, that evening was the kind of bloodbath De La Soul never warned us about:
Rollerdiscos are associated with a high incidence of injury, as is binge drinking. On Valentine’s evening 2008, Liverpool University combined these two venerable pastimes at a student event, without informing local health services. Subsequently, emergency services were overwhelmed with Rollerdisco casualties and a ‘major incident’ was declared at the Royal Liverpool Accident and Emergency Department […] The event itself consisted of a newly laminated hall for roller skating, alcoholic drink promotions and a 1980s themed dress code. Certainly the Accident and Emergency Department became a colourful place with variously injured patients in flamboyant dress and in a generally ‘exuberant’ mood.
In all, eight patients were admitted (one patient for every 17 min of the disco). The majority of injuries were to the upper limb (87%) and in female patients (87%), in keeping with previous studies of Rollerdisco injuries.
That last sentence gives me hope that there’s a university hospital out there with a wing devoted entirely to the biomechanics of rollerdisco injuries.
Via Improbable Research. Top image of Dazzler, the Marvel’s Universe’s foremost rollerskating heroine, in a compromising position and hat.
