SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Illegal fireworks sent numerous people to the hospital during Fourth of July festivities.
ABC10 confirmed reports of fireworks causing burns and severe injuries to hands. A trauma surgeon ABC10 spoke with said they deal with these kind of injuries every year around this holiday.
Folsom police said a person's hand was severely injured by an illegal firework around 10:45 p.m. in the parking lot of a shopping center on Greenback Lane.
Emergency rooms and surgeons are busy caring for patients with fireworks-related injuries every year.
"People want to celebrate the holidays. They want to have a good time, but it's very easy for someone to get injured with fireworks," said Rachael Callcut, Division Chief of Trauma and Critical Care for UC Davis.
She said they see a variety of different injuries caused by fireworks, some from illegal fireworks and others from accidents with legal fireworks.
"Most commonly, burns related to the fireworks, hand injuries are very common from fireworks going off in people's hand (and) eye injuries," she said. "We, on occasion, also see pretty catastrophic injuries, like traumatic brain injury, if a firework goes off near someone and hits them inadvertently and a lot of these can be pretty life altering for patients."
Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District responded to more than 100 fires on July 4, and some of the fireworks caused severe injuries. They said a 44-year-old man sustained a severe explosive injury to his left hand while lighting illegal fireworks. Another man in his 40s man has burns to hands, abdomen, lower extremities and shrapnel wounds from a mortar that exploded while he was lighting it. They also said a 6-year-old girl sustained minor burns to her leg.
The fire district also said a 35-year-old man lost a finger while lighting a Safe and Sane fountain that exploded.
"Even people who think that they're a safe distance from home fireworks displays or people who feel that they've done it before, every year we end up with people who have pretty significant injuries from those," said Callcut. "Those are incredibly life-changing events for a short amount of joy."
She also said it is important for people who get injured to seek medical care for sizeable burns or anything that is extremely painful instead of trying to care for it yourself.
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