"I am very disappointed with the Carnival, because it has nothing to do with the carnivals of before. It has been a mess of alcohol and lawsuits." This is how the president of the Red Cross in Lanzarote, Rafael Hernández, spoke on Radio Lanzarote about the "long and non-stop working" night of Carnival Monday in Arrecife. There were many incidents in the two mogollones, both in the Ramírez Cerdá park and in El Almacén.
Thus, a young man has had to be evacuated to Gran Canaria due to the injuries he suffered in one of the fights that took place on Monday night. And it is that only in the Red Cross hospital was 33 people attended during that night, mostly for injuries and significant alcohol consumption. "It's an exorbitant number, a barbarity, that had never happened," Hernández said.
The hospital opened on Monday at 11:30 p.m. and attended people until 7:00 a.m. Of the 33 attended, "31 people presented a state of intoxication and injuries from bottles, lawsuits, punches or blows." The ages of the people attended ranged from "16 or 17 years" and "did not exceed 40. "We had to call some homes so that parents would pick up minors, who were drunk," he said.
"We attended to more men, but also to women. We cured a woman with a bottle in the head and she said that another woman had hit her," explained the president of the Red Cross on the island. "Luckily, they were not injuries with a knife, they were rather bottles and punches in the nose, in the mouth, face or head," he said, while saying that on one occasion he had to travel by ambulance to El Almacén to pick up an injured person.
In this hospital, volunteers, a doctor and nurses worked and had several ambulances from the Red Cross, REN and Emerlan. "We did not stop attending to young people who presented injuries from fights," he said. "We all wondered where the 40-year-olds were, the ones who go to have fun and not to make a fuss like the ones that were there," he lamented.
"Even our physical integrity was in danger"
Thanks to this hospital "the José Molina Orosa Hospital did not collapse." "There we sewed wounds and attended to people, although six had to be evacuated to the General Hospital or health centers. I also know that Emerlan transferred another person," Hernández said.
The president of the Red Cross in Lanzarote wanted to thank the Local Police of Arrecife and the National Police for their performance during Monday night. "They got us out of more than one trouble. They had to enter the hospital and put order and even take out some troublemaker, because even our physical integrity was in danger. There was a tremendous imbalance in some carnival-goers. It's not what I knew about Carnival," he said.
Balance of Saturday and the coso
Rafael Hernández also explained that during the great coso of the Carnival in Arrecife a hospital was set up, which practically "had no impact." However, an ambulance had to make a transfer due to an aggression during the Parade.
On Saturday night, the Red Cross hospital attended to 13 people. "It was quieter, nothing to do with Monday. The problem on Monday is that people are warming up during the Parade and at those hours of the night they are more than warm. One thing leads to another and there are people who do not know how to behave," Hernández lamented.
