Celebrations at home spur fireworks warning
With more San Antonians expected to ring in the new year at home this year, health officials are warning of the dangers that fireworks can pose, at a time when emergency responders and hospitals are already stretched to care for hundreds of people sick with COVID-19.
Although it’s still illegal to buy or set off fireworks within the city limits, Sunday marked the first day they could be offered for sale in Bexar County. But with the pandemic making families more likely to avoid public celebrations with fireworks displays run by pyrotechnic experts, health officials and parents are cautioning that fireworks — and even seemingly benign sparklers — can cause serious burns and injuries when things go wrong.
“We tend to think that, ‘Oh, spar
klers, they’re safe, they’re approved. They even sell them at your local Target or Walmart,’” said April Tejeda, whose son was severely burned by sparklers two years ago. “No one would ever think a sparkler could do that, but you just never know how powerful any firework can be.”
On Jan. 1, 2019, Tejeda and her son Aidan Arriaga, then 13, had just rung in the new year. As the adults readied for bed, Arriaga and a friend bundled 70 sparklers together and lit them, something they’d seen on the internet.
The two never expected the sparklers would blow up into Arriaga’s hand.
“I just remember a big flash in front of me,” Arriaga, now 15, recalled. “I was trying to look at my hand, and it was still black. … I thought it was like one of those cartoons where it’s just dust and you can wipe it off. But then it wouldn’t come off.”
Arriaga was rushed to the hospital with severe burns on his left hand. He spent three days hospitalized, then weeks attending appointments with doctors to remove dead tissue, heal the new skin and regain the normal use of his hand. He was fitted with a specialized glove to protect the skin, which couldn’t be exposed to sunlight for months.
Because of his injury, Arriaga missed out on baseball and summer vacations at the beach. It took more than six months for him to heal.
“Sparklers are notoriously bad because they stay hot for so long,” said Dr. Christopher Crane, a trauma surgeon who specializes in treating pediatric burns at University Hospital, which cared for Arriaga. “They burn so hot that any kind of close contact can cause pretty significant burns.”
Sparklers burn at about 2,000 degrees — hot enough to melt some metals, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Last year, the agency found, children younger than 15 made up 36 percent of the estimated fireworksrelated injuries in the U.S.
Crane said fireworks are dangerous because of how unpredictable they are. Sparklers can still be hot enough to burn someone or start a fire even after they go out, and projectiles, such as bottle rockets, can easily tip over and launch into people, homes and pets.
“I actually had a patient who was raking leaves and the bottle rocket went into the leaves, caught the leaves on fire. He went to put the leaves out and caught himself on fire,” Crane said, adding that the patient’s burns were so serious that he needed skin grafting.
Even after the skin heals, it can take months — and, in extreme cases, years — to regain normal function in body parts that have been severely burned, Crane said.
If families to plan to use fireworks, the American Burn Association says parents should keep fireworks, including sparklers, out of children’s hands and should designate a sober adult to light them. It also recommends that fireworks be stored out of children’s reach and that onlookers watch fireworks from a safe distance, ideally behind a barrier or some kind.