Firework injuries up slightly
By Walter Wright
Advertiser Staff Writer
Firework injuries increased by about 10 percent in Hawai'i on and near New Year's Eve compared to the same holiday period the previous year, the state reported yesterday.
Advertiser library photo • Dec. 31, 2001
The figures suggest the increased injuries were from items other than firecrackers.
Ulysses Liaina, 10, soaks his hand in ice water after it was burned by fireworks on New Year's Eve. Despite fewer firecracker permits sold, hospitals reported more firework injuries.
The numbers were too small to draw many conclusions, state epidemiologist Dan Galanis said, but they do raise interesting questions in light of the reduced amount of legal firecracker sales this past season.
Honolulu sold 4,401 of the $25 permits required to purchase up to 5,000 firecrackers, 32 percent less than the 6,427 permits sold the previous year.
The Honolulu Police Department said it received 790 fireworks-related calls between the day after Christmas and the day after New Year's, about 29 percent fewer calls than the previous year.
There were 85 fireworks-related cases treated in hospital emergency departments from Dec. 30 to Jan. 2, said Galanis, an epidemiologist at the state Health Department's injury prevention and control program.
Those cases were reported by 24 emergency rooms around the state, three more emergency rooms than reported last year.
When only those emergency rooms reporting in both years were counted, the number of cases increased from 59 to 66, Galanis said.
The emergency departments reporting this year, but not last year, included Wai'anae Coast Comprehensive Health Center, which had 14 injuries, the highest number reported by any one facility.
The most common injury case involved a younger O'ahu male burned on the hands or fingers while holding or lighting firecrackers or sparklers sometime between 6 p.m. New Year's Eve and 2 a.m. the following day, reports from emergency rooms indicated.
Last year, 23 of the 47 injuries for which a cause was known were reported as firecracker injuries, representing almost half the total.
This year, firecrackers were described as the cause of 14 injuries, or less than one-third of the 49 for which a cause was reported.
But Galanis cautioned that reporting of type of fireworks involved in injuries in either year was probably somewhat unreliable. He said he was aware of cases in which firecrackers and other fireworks had been described inaccurately.
