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Health Tip:

Fireworks
Don’t lose your independence
on Independence Day!

They’re beautiful, hypnotic, inspiring and dangerous. Each year, thousands of injuries occur from fireworks. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cite

• In 2006, 11 dead and an estimated 9,200 treated in emergency departments for fireworks-related injuries in the United States.
• An estimated 5 percent of fireworks-related injuries treated in emergency departments required hospitalization.

Most injuries involved:

• Hands (2,300 injuries), eyes (1,500 injuries), and the head, face, and ear (1,400 injuries).
• Burns were the most common injury type to all body parts except the eyes and head areas, where contusions, lacerations and foreign bodies in the eye occurred more frequently.

Most common fireworks involved:

• Firecrackers, associated with the greatest number of estimated injuries at 1,300. There were 1,000 injuries associated with sparklers and 800 associated with bottle rockets.
• Sparklers, accounting for one-third of the injuries to children younger than 5.

Between 2000-05, more than one-third of the fireworks-related deaths involved professional devices that were illegally sold to consumers.

According to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, if you are going to light firecrackers:

• Use a specially designed stick, or "punk," rather than a match to light fireworks.
• Have a bucket of water ready.
• Always follow manufacturers' directions and dispose of used fireworks properly.
• Never give a firecracker or sparkler to a child.
• Never use a bottle rocket.
• Do not light firecrackers bigger than your pinkie, do not light them indoors, and avoid relighting duds.
• Never put fireworks in your pocket, throw them while lit, or make homemade firecrackers.
• In case of eye injury, do not touch the eye. Tape a clean paper cup over the eye to prevent contamination or further injury. Immediately seek medical attention from an ophthalmologist (eye MD).

What is banned nationwide: Any firecracker with more than 50 milligrams of explosive powder and any aerial firework with more than 130 milligrams of flash powder is banned under federal law, as are mail order kits and components designed to build these fireworks.