May brings bikers. It also brings violence

Since 2012, Grand Strand Health has been keeping data on traumas it treats during the last three weeks of May, ending with Memorial Day weekend.

Patient names are not disclosed and the data is accessed only by a limited number of people. The hospital uses the data to study how it could better treat patients and prepare staff.

“One of the biggest events in Myrtle Beach that we notice every year is bike month,” said Dr. Antonio Pepe, the trauma medical director for Grand Strand Health. “We call it bike week but it’s really bike month.”

While motorcycle accidents have remained relatively steady, the number of traumas has increased over the past five years, said Pepe. Traumas are any sort of penetrating or blunt injury, whether from a fall, vehicle accident, stabbing or shooting, among others.

“What we found was over the last several years … there’s been an increase in the number of violent-related activities that have occurred,” Pepe said. “And that can be both assaults, and penetrating, whatever the nature.”

The hospital could not give exact numbers but said bike month traumas have increased 11 percent between 2012 and 2016. Other traumas not including motorcycles have increased 43 percent during the same time period.

As a result, Grand Strand has increased security for personnel in the field and at the hospital during those weeks.

“We’ve stepped up our security for our EMS staff going to a scene and for our immediate hospital so that when patients do arrive who are part of a violent act, we provide safety for our staff,” said Pepe. “We’ve instituted things like security at the gate so that when they do arrive through EMS doors that they arrive without any weapons. Unfortunately, that’s the nature of where we are right now.”

Since a traffic loop – enacted during the Atlantic Beach Bikefest – was instituted, the hospital has seen a decrease in the number of traumas but an increase in the severity of traumas.

Pepe said it was too early to tell if the loop was causing the difference, or why violence-related traumas have increased.

“Ultimately we want them to come down, enjoy their time, not make bad decisions and try to improve how we could deliver that message to them so they can go back home to their families,” said Pepe. “And that’s the whole reason to study bike week.”

This story was originally published May 25, 2017 at 7:11 PM with the headline "May brings bikers. It also brings violence."