‘Tis the season for pyrotechnic displays, the rockets’ red glare and explosions in the sky – but for surgeons, especially those who specialize in conditions of the hand, the season can bring bad tidings of discomfort and pain.
“Usually a few weeks before the holiday, we start seeing people come in more and more with firework injuries,” Dr. Ryan Zimmerman, a hand surgeon at Medstar Health, said.
There are 27 individual bones inside your hand, and half of them are in your fingers. Though there have been countless medical advances, there’s only so much to do when those bones are injured.
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Zimmerman said the most serious injuries are from holding things that aren't meant to be held – like explosives, which are banned in jurisdictions like D.C.
“People can have injuries that involved amputations of one or more fingers, especially the loss of the thumb is a devastating injury, but we see people where the entire hand can really be lost," he said.
The most common injuries are burns.
“The skin on the hands is very special. It’s pliable, it moves and any injury to that can be a tremendous injury,” Zimmerman said.
This year, the American Pyrotechnics Association expects sales to surpass last year’s total of $2.3 billion. That’s even with local prohibitions on certain kinds of fireworks.
“The mortars, the quarter sticks and stuff like that. You see people blowing their hands off. Like you see in the news, people had some in the garage and it exploded and people want to modify them and things. That’s not fun. It’s not fun,” Christopher King, of Ogilvie Fireworks, warned.
King said there are still plenty of legal fireworks that can be exciting, and Zimmerman said safety is always key because you could literally be playing with fire.
Sober adult supervision is always a must. Though the best advice is to leave it to the professionals.
