Fewer riders require treatment (+video)

Ten people have needed hospital treatment so far since the Crankworx festival began but Peak Safety director Mark Woods believes the final tally of injured riders will be less than last year.

Mr Woods said the festival had been going really well and they had a good team on site.

He said they had been doing "bits and pieces", looking after people who had crashed.

Mr Woods said they had not been rushed off their feet and were glad all the courses were well designed.

"It makes our job a lot easier."

A lot of injuries had been minor, such as grazes requiring cleaning, he said.

He said they had sent a couple of people to hospital with fractures or after being knocked out, "but everyone's turned out okay".

Mr Woods said they had not calculated how many jobs they had had so far, but that it would be less than last year.

He said the injuries had been relatively routine and what you would expect given the nature of the sport.

Mr Woods said they had up to 20 people on site each day, with eight core staff and some volunteering staff from the hospital.

St John Lakes area territorial manager Hilary Morrish Allen said they had a joint management plan with Peak Safety.

She said the medical team immediately responded to the patient, but when a patient was status one or two, St John would be notified.

"Anything status three or four - such as a broken arm or sprained wrist - their team deal with at the event and the patient makes their own way to the hospital.

"We only get to see the really bad stuff."

So far St John had transported about 10 patients since Monday, ranging from minor fractures through to serious spinal and head injuries, she said.

She said St John had not put extra staff on duty for Crankworx, but they had extra staff on call if required.

"We have our normal cover on the road and we are monitoring our response times constantly, if our response times fall below our performance targets then we will put extra staff on."

Normal cover is three vehicles during the day with two paramedics on board, and two vehicles at night with two paramedics, she said. "We have additional crews on standby at all times when required."

Lakes DHB clinical director emergency medicine Peter Freeman said they had extra doctors rostered to work in Rotorua Hospital's emergency department from Wednesday to Sunday this week.

"Hospital doctors and nurses have volunteered to help at the event."

He said last year the emergency department saw about 45 patients from Crankworx. So far this week they had seen a couple of injured mountain bikers from practice runs, he said.

Crankworx injuries:

* 2015 injured riders appearing in hospital: 43.

* 2016 injured riders appearing in hospital so far: 10.