In addition to managing the 140 to 170 patients who are typically admitted to Mount Nittany Medical Center in a 24-hour period on football weekends, the hospital had to manage another problem during the Ohio State football game: getting those patients home.

The influx of patients on the weekend of Oct. 8 has spurred discussion about how to deal with future football weekends, which mean more hospital visits.

The hospital usually sends students home by taxi, using vouchers the student can pay at a later time.

However, because the Ohio State game was at night, the taxi services were overwhelmed with calls and couldn't get to the hospital as often as needed.

After re-evaluating the weekend, the emergency room administration realized it was a problem that needed to be fixed, hospital spokeswoman Maureen Karstetter said.

"Part of our safe patient care is safe patient discharge," she said.

The administration went to Penn State for help, and University Health Services (UHS) agreed to fund a university van to shuttle students back and forth during the next two football weekends to avoid the problem again.

"Ohio State kind of made it clear that the problem was worse than anticipated," Margaret Spear, director of UHS, said.

Because it was a night game, which means longer tailgating and a higher risk of alcohol overdose, Karstetter said the hospital saw more student patients than usual.

The shuttle was free and ran every hour from halftime to midnight on the days of the Purdue and Wisconsin games, taking students from the hospital to College Avenue.

Spear said that the van was free because it was a last-minute solution, but if a service like this continued in the future, there would have to be a permanent way to support it financially.

Now that home football games are over for the season, the university, the borough and the hospital are planning to have additional discussions to find ways to alleviate the problem in the future.

However, no solutions have been considered yet.

"I think what we need to do is look retrospectively," Spear said. "If there is an ongoing problem, we have to collectively find a solution."

Penn State spokesman Tysen Kendig said the shuttle service is only a "temporary Band-Aid" to the problem.

Gary McDivitt, a taxi controller at Handy Delivery Inc., 2197 High Tech Road, said that using a shuttle van or other form of transportation would be a huge help on home football weekends but wouldn't be needed any other time.

"On football weekends, we would pretty much take any help we can get," McDivitt said. "The rest of the year, we'd prefer not to have that kind of assistance, but on football weekends, my God."

Andrew Smith (sophomore-management), who was taken to the hospital last September for alcohol overdose, said he didn't have a problem finding a taxi to take him home since he woke up in the early morning.

"If it's a football weekend and you can't get cabs very easily, having a van is a good idea," Smith said. "But it all depends on the circumstance."

Amy Baylor (sophomore-Spanish), who was admitted to the hospital last summer for alcohol overdose, went home by taxi and said the idea of a shuttle system is good for an uncomfortable situation.

"It would make it less awkward," Baylor said. "It was just me and the taxi driver, and I felt kind of weird; I had all this hospital stuff on. If there were a bunch of people in the van, it wouldn't be as awkward."