Keep the blasting to the experts this 4th of July!
Submitted by Dr. Gwenn Is In
I love 4th of July - it is truly one of my favorite holidays with fireworks, people gathering with their families and the Boston Pops playing on the Esplanade in Boston. Whether we venture into the city to gather with the crowds or watch the event from home, everyone ends up going to bed happily exhausted.
For an ER doc, though, 4th of July is also one of the more hazardous holidays to work, and think about. A year ago, I posted a few 4th of July fireworks stories from my life, one of which was of a child I cared for in the ER. I can’t get through the holiday without thinking about these kids and the countless others I’ve seen over the years with fireworks-related injuries.
The National Fire Protection Association, reports that “(i)n 2007, U.S. hospital emergency rooms treated an estimated 9,800 people for fireworks related injuries; 56% of 2007 emergency room fireworks-related injuries were to the extremities and 36% were to the head.” And, that “(t)he risk of fireworks injury was two-and-a-half times as high for children ages 5-9 or 10-14 as for the general population.”
Because of this enormous risk to kids, the American Academy of Pediatrics urges parents to not buy fireworks for kids but gather at public places where fireworks are set off by professionals.
We teach our kids to not play with fire. If we want that lesson to sink in, we have to follow it, too. Leave the lighting of things that go boom and light up the sky this 4th of July to the real pros. You’ll enjoy the holiday much more from the vantage point of the crowd and not some ER watching on a small TV, waiting for your injured child to be tended to.
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July 3rd, 2009 at 3:51 am
thank you post,very nice post
July 4th, 2009 at 10:09 am
You cant protect your children from everything, maybe you should teach them how to set off fireworks responsibly. and make sure there fireworks arent very dangerous.