Dr. Edana Mann is an emergency room physician at St. Agnes Hospital in southwest Baltimore City. She has worked many late-night shifts on the Fourth of July and consequently, has treated her share of fireworks and party-related injuries.
“Every form of trauma is expanded on the Fourth,” she noted. “Burn injuries are the most frequent.”
What should be a day of celebration ends in an emergency room visit for many children and adults. Equally sobering are the facts out of the National Fire Protection Association.
In 2004, the NFPA reports, U.S. hospital emergency rooms treated anestimated 9,600 people for fireworks-related injuries. Of these injuries, 42 percent were to the head and 53 percent to the extremities.
“Fireworks are not meant to be handled by children,” warned Elise Armacost, communications director for the Baltimore County Fire Department.
She added that fireworks moving along the ground on their own power are illegal. So are projectiles that detonate, explode or produce loud booming noises.
Mann, a mother of three young children, agrees, but goes further.
“Look at the warnings on a packet of sparklers,” she pointed out. It?s incredible what you?re allowed to use.”
It all comes down to supervising children, she noted.
The police plan to keep their eyes on children. Extra officers will be on patrol. When it comes to illegal use of fireworks, Cpl. Doug Johnson of the Baltimore County Police Department is adamant.
“If we catch them in the act, we file a juvenile custody report and they are released to [the] parents,” he said.
He also added that no leave, unless it was pre-approved, is granted to officers on the Fourth.
“Everybody?s on duty,” he said, “even detectives.”
