Hospital visits for smoke inhalation spiked during Boyle Heights warehouse fire
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Set us as preferred The number of Angelenos who went to the hospital with with throat pain and concerns about smoke inhalation spiked as a fire burned through the massive Lineage cold storage warehouse in Boyle Heights this month, The Times has learned.The blaze burned for eight days beginning June 17 and involved solar panels, insulation foam and other industrial materials.
During that time, more than three times as many people went to emergency departments within 10 miles of the warehouse mentioning the fire or smoke inhalation compared with the two weeks prior, according to data from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health obtained through a public records request.The agency also noted a near doubling of patients mentioning throat pain within five miles of the fire June 21 — 1.9 times the baseline levels.
Usually, fewer than 50 people go to the emergency room each day for throat pain, and fewer than 20 people for smoke inhalation, the department said.California With the Boyle Heights fire burning for a sixth straight day, here is an update on the latest conditions.The hospitalization data was tracked through the department’s syndromic surveillance project, which monitors trends in what people report when they come to emergency departments in L.A.
County, as well as diagnosis codes noted by providers.The system is not as comprehensive as full patient health records, and clinicians may not always include key words about “fire,” “smoke” or other circumstantial information in their diagnoses, the public health department said.
As such, it “cannot capture the true number of [emergency department] visits related to symptoms from the fire and likely underestimates the true burden of fire related symptoms,” the department said.Perhaps unexpectedly, the department said it did not note a substantial increase in asthma, acute respiratory symptoms or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease-re...