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There's No Safe Way to Play With Fireworks

Posted on: Friday, 4 July 2003, 06:00 CDT

By Dennis Thompson Jr., HealthDay Reporter

HealthDayNews -- The Chicago Bulls had just won the 1997 National Basketball Association championship, and 11-year-old Colin Burns was celebrating like everyone else on his block -- heck, like everyone else in the Windy City.

A friend touched a flame to a firework to help toast the champions. That was the last thing Burns saw out of his left eye.

Burns, now 17 and a high school junior, wears a glass eye and a scar that stretches to his nose.

"After six or seven surgeries, the eye almost looks normal and the scar has decreased dramatically," he says.

Prevent Blindness America, a national eye health and safety organization, has declared June 1 through July 4 as Fireworks Safety Month. And it has recruited eye-injury victims like Burns to help spread the word that fireworks are nothing to play with.

Eyes are the second most likely part of the body to be injured by an errant firework, with some 1,600 eye injuries occurring in 2001, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. The most often injured body part is the hand, with 1,800 injuries reported in 2001.

Fireworks caused four deaths and about 9,500 injuries in the United States in 2001. Three of every five fireworks injuries occurred in the 30-day period surrounding the Fourth of July. And children under 15 suffered about half the total fireworks injuries for 2001.

Firecrackers caused 26 percent of all injuries, followed by bottle rockets, 21 percent, and sparklers, 11 percent.

Bottle rockets are to blame for more eye injuries than any other type of fireworks, experts say. They caused 25 percent of eye injuries in 2001, followed by firecrackers and sparklers, both at 13 percent.

"Bottle rockets misfire, and they follow an erratic flight path when they shoot off," says Betsy van Die, media relations director for Prevent Blindness America. "You can't control them, and that's why they're unsafe."

Sparklers also cause many injuries to children -- about one-third of the injuries to kids under 5 -- and shouldn't be considered lightly. They burn at 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the Virginia Society of Opthalmology -- hot enough to melt gold.

"Little kids get too close to them or put them in each other's faces, and of course the sparks are flying off," van Die says.

Burns still isn't sure what sort of firework caused his injury. All he remembers is a loud bang and smoke everywhere, and then being hustled to a friend's house.

"It was completely numb," Burns says. "His mom handed me a towel. I sat down and put it up against my head. The ambulance came a few minutes later."

He passed out in the ambulance, and awoke three days later.

Burns later found that nothing had struck his face. The explosion alone destroyed his left eye and split his face from his eye to his nose.

There's no safe way to play with fireworks, experts say. They urge people to abandon the backyard displays in favor of the professional shows offered in just about every town in America on the Fourth of July.

Burns has recuperated, and despite problems with his depth perception now can play outdoor sports such as Frisbee, football and baseball.

But he, too, urges people to leave fireworks to the experts.

"There are professional shows you can go to," Burns says. "It's a lot safer, and it's a lot more fun. You see a bigger boom."

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