Effect of the 1998 Soccer World Cup Tournament on rescue requests

Objectives : We studied whether the Soccer World Cup Tournament in 1998 had an impact on the number of distress calls received by an emergency service. Methods: Time series analysis was used retrospectively to study the relative frequency of telephone calls to a French emergency dispatching center during the period of the World Cup. Results: Between 1 May 1997 and 15 August 1998 a total of 109,139 calls were recorded. During the period of the World Cup (10 June–12 July 1998) there was an overall decrease in rescue requests, distress calls, treatments in a mobile intensive care unit, and ambulance runs. There was no significant decrease during the French team matches except that between France and Italy. Discussion: Rescue requests vary with the occurrence of public events. The decline which we discovered affected not the period of specific matches but the duration of the entire tournament. These results raise the question of the specificity of distress calls to an emergency dispatching center that receives not only medical requests but also general questions concerning illnesses.