Maccabi Games
Detroit 1990
The Doctor Of Maccabi
Or The Iceman Cometh
Keeping the athletes well required tender
loving care and lots of ice
RICHARD PEARL
Staff Writer
H
ere's some cool news
for you:
Thanks to The
Iceman, things managed to
_ chill out pretty well after a
hot beginning to the 1990
Jewish Community Centers
North American Maccabi
Youth Games. •
The cold fact was, there
was a major ice shortage
Aug. 20, the first day of
competition, when the de-
mand for ice packs for
bruises, contusions, sprains
and other minor injuries saw
the first-aid stations at
Maple-Drake Jewish Com-
munity Center and West
Bloomfield High School go
through five cases of plastic-
encased chemical cold packs.
Regular ice and Styrofoam
ice chests to hold it were
needed quickly, and the only
person available to pick
them up was Sinai
Hospital's Dr. Solomon
Hochbaum, director of the
Games' emergency medical
team. He found a physician
to cover for him in the Sinai
emergency room and drove
to Pontiac to get the chests.
"The Iceman cometh!"
chirped the staff when the
doctor arrived with the sup-
plies. Those same staffers
became adept at morning
search-and-seizure missions
aimed at rounding up sup-
plies of ice from area conve-
nience stores.
But Dr. Hochbaiim, while
pleased with his staff's
efforts, downplayed the
situation, saying all
emergency medical per-
sonnel have to "think on
their feet, to improvise
often."
He said the ice shortage
was created In part because
or wet soccer fields and
because many of the young'
Games participants were
pushing themselves beyond
their physical conditioning.
During the week-long
Games, first-aid stations
treated 232 youngsters with
injuries, most of them minor.
Fewer than 10 required
treatment at a nearby
hospital. Most were released
by the Games' closing. But
one athlete, kicked in the
kidney during a soccer mat-
ch, remained at Beaumont
Hospital until Tuesday.
Besides the soccer injury,
The injuries
decreased as the
soccer fields dried
and as the less
skilled players
dropped out, the
physician noted.
the most serious situations
involved a youngster briefly
hospitalized with a racing
heartbeat, a softball player
hit in the face by a ball, two
wrestlers ,x-rayed after they
banged heads in a match,
one athlete with a broken
arm and another with a
broken leg.
And the story of how Sinai
Hospital's Dr. Hochbaum
came to be affectionately
known as The Iceman is part
of the overall story of the
handling of medical
emergencies during the
Games — an event the size of
the Winter Olympics, with a
potential patient-count in
the hundreds, if not
thousands.
It's a story that involved
coordinating the voluntary
efforts of physicians and
other medical professionals
within the Detroit Jewish
community with those of the
medical staffs of three major
hospitals —Sinai, Henry
Ford and Beaumont, plus
the emergency medical
technicians (EMTs) of the
West Bloomfield Fire
Department.
"Once it (the medical
coverage) got rolling, it was
excellent," said Renee Dur-
bin of Birmingham, chair-
man of the gymnastics at the
Games.
"Our main purpose was to
get any injured children into
the hands of medical profes-
sionals as quickly as possi-
ble," said Dr. Michael
Kobernick of Huntington
Woods. "I am very satisfied
with the results. We had no
complaints about the quality
of medical care at the
Games."
"It was a real, growing,
positive learning experi-
ence," said Dr. Hochbaum,
who is chairman of Sinai's
department of emergency
medicine.
The five cases of chemical
coldpacks amounted to 500
ice packs the first day, said
Dr. Hochbaum, whose staff
of five physiciang and 18
nurses and medical techni-
cians also was flooded with
requests for tape and for
help in taping ankle, knee
and other joints on the
young athletes.
With the JCC's two ice
machines busy churning out
ice for cold drinks, the Sinai
emergency team began a
telephone search for
Styrofoam ice chests and ice
for them. Despite problems
with the donated cellular
telephones, whose signals at
times were inhibited by the
steel in the buildings, the
staffers finally located 25 ice
chests at Joe's Army-Navy
Surplus Store in Pontiac.
"We had a lot of sprains,"
Dr. Hochbaum said. "Half
the boys on the Chicago
soccer team came limping in
here."
Dr. Solomon Hochbaum
mans the ice chest at
the Maccabi infirmary.
The injuries decreased as
the soccer fields dried and as
the less skilled players
dropped out, the physician
noted.
Dr. Hochbaum was im-
pressed by the caliber of
coaching and the knowledge
of sports medicine at the
Games. Some teams brought
their own trainers, which in
part led to the shortage of
tape.
"They were taping a lot of
joints" so that the kids could
compete,- Dr. Hochbaum
said.
Some of the tape ended up
in unusual places. Two
swimmers from Los Angeles
used it on the rears of their
black trunks. One wore a big
"L", the other a big "A" —
ostensibly as an advertising
ploy to attract female
swimmers.
It had the doctor marvel-
ing at- the creativeness of
youth. ❑
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
29