Doctors are now advising some of the fans who attended a below-freezing Kansas City Chiefs playoff game to schedule amputation appointments - as the effects of severe frostbite continue to impact their health.
In January, as the soon-to-be Super Bowl winners were ramping up for the NFL playoffs, fans filled Arrowhead Stadium, even as temperatures dropped below freezing with a windchill of -27 degrees. The Chiefs defeated the Miami Dolphins 26 to 7 but many of the headlines following the game were instead focused on the brutal cold - with viral videos fans' showing water and beer freezing instantly.
The Kansas City Fire Department received 69 emergency calls from the stadium and the parking lot - with half the calls being linked to hypothermia.
"We set up four field aid stations throughout the parking lot and...either someone flagged us down or we were sent by our operations to locate those individuals in their seats," a fire department spokesperson said, according to ABC News.
Fifteen people, with more serious injuries, were transported to the hospital on the day of the game. Months later, the frostbite victims still haven't fully recovered.
"The patients who had their frostbite injuries along with the Chiefs game, they are just getting to the point now we are starting to discuss their amputations that might be necessary," Dr. Megan Garcia of the Grossman Burn Center at Research Medical Center, in Kansas City, told WDAF.
The frostbite patients who avoided amputation are still expected to experience lifelong health consequences.
"They'll have sensitivity and pain for the rest of their lives and always will be more susceptible to frostbite in the future," Garcia told WDAF. "So we are also educating them to make sure they stay warm for the years and months to come."
