4th of July safety tips for kids

Both Aurora Baycare and UW Health told Action 2 News that they end up treating a handful of children each year because of fireworks.
Published: Jul. 2, 2022 at 4:20 PM CDT
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GREEN BAY, Wis. (WBAY) - While fireworks can be fun, Doctors want to stress that they also can be very dangerous Especially for little ones.

“Unfortunately, due to the literally explosive nature of fireworks and types of injuries, we see tend to be fairly severe, uh, with burns being the most frequent they account for about half of the injuries and the most common culprit causing these are our favorites, the sparkler,” Dr. Greg Rebella with UW Health said.

Both Aurora Baycare and UW Health told Action 2 News that they end up treating a handful of children each year because of fireworks.

They report that on average Wisconsin treats about 100 fireworks patients each year, With 25% being kids.

“While the effect of shooting sparks with sparklers is really cool, the danger is that they occur at a really high temperature, near 2000 degrees. And that heat is similar to what’s generated by a blow torch,” Dr. Rebella said.

“Hand and finger injuries are probably, you know, if not number one, a close number two. Uh, and they keep our hand surgeons fairly busy, unfortunately,” Dr. Nels Rose with Aurora BayCare said.

Today doctors are asking people to please leave the fireworks to the professionals.

If you plan to set them off yourself they recommend keeping kids away, leaving them as spectators, and using headphones to muffle the sound.

They say glow sticks can be a great replacement for sparklers.

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