The Fourth of July is the busiest day of the year for Fire and EMS departments across the country. That probably doesn’t come as a shock to you. What could go wrong when you combine summer heat with dry grass, parties and fireworks? Now last week I went over burn injuries which make up half of the injuries we will see this Fourth of July, so there will be some overlap with that article. But that just means you are already super smart when it comes to burns and burn treatment.
What are the most common injuries EMS will be called out to evaluate this week? Car accidents, face and eye injuries, hand and finger injuries, swimming accidents and food poisoning. If we look at the weeks before and after the Fourth of July, we find that there are over 240 visits to ERs everyday for firework related injuries during that period. This means there are thousands more that get injured and just treat their injuries themselves. Kids under the age of 15 are most often injured and boys account for 75 percent of them — I’m seeing a recurring theme here. Fire departments will respond to more fires on the Fourth of July than any other day of the year and half of those fires will be from fireworks. This is also the fourth most dangerous driving day of the year resulting in over 400 deaths. So firework related injuries are actually in second place behind car crashes on Fourth of July for injuries.
The fireworks that are most responsible for our misery in July are firecrackers, sparklers, bottle rockets, roman candles and reloadable shells. Which one of these is responsible for the most injuries? Believe it or not its sparklers. These things burn hot (1,800 degrees hot) and can easily cause burns and fires but they also put off those hot sparkling metal embers that can fly off into your face causing burns to your eyes.
