AMBULANCE chiefs have blasted drunks who have caused their New Year workload to spiral.

Crews say they will be glad when the festive holiday is over. And they say they dread to think how bad it will be when the whole population goes into party mode for the end of the millennium next year.

This year, calls to the already overstretched Greater Manchester Ambulance Service have been at an all time high.

As well as the mass of extra work caused by the flu epidemic - which has hit staff as well as patients - crews have been stretched to the limit by scores of calls to incidents such as drunks cut on broken glass or injured in falls and fights.

In some cases, crews have had to turn out to people reported as "dead" in the street - only to find that they have drunk themself to unconsciousness.

Figures released today by the Greater Manchester Ambulance Service reveal that 787 emergency calls were made in just the first FIVE hours of 1999.

On a normal 24 hour shift on a busy day, paramedics are sent to about 700 incidents.

Throughout yesterday and last night the service continued to be swamped by drink related incidents.

And paramedics bosses say that the majority of the call-outs were to people who had been injured or lost control because they had simply had too much alcohol.

Even though the Millennium's end is still a year away, they are already pleading with people to "think before they drink" at the celebrations next December, so the service can concentrate on real casulaties.

An ambulance service spokesman said: "We want people to do themselves and us a favour and think before they drink too much. "Every incident where we are helping someone who may have collapsed because of excess alcohol is an uneccesary one and someone else may suffer because of it.

"We would urge people to stop and consider what they are doing before they start drinking in the Millennium celebrations."

The input of the Bolton Mountain Rescue team has been hailed as a success. Two Land Rover ambulances, manned by six volunteers and two reserve members, patrolled the town, and were called out to around half a dozen incidents.

Their support came after months of negotiations with ambulance management and was used as a tester for planned help in the Millennium.

The ambulance spokesman added: "We have already started planning for the Millennium by testing out town and city centre field hospitals on New Year's Eve."

They were set up in town and city centres and proved "a great success", said the spokesman. "Every casualty who was treated in one of the field hospitals was one less calling for an ambulance."

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