A Fourth of July he’d rather not remember
Injuries leave former carpenter wishing he had heeded warnings
SAN JOSE — When Alazar Ortiz woke up at Regional Medical Center the morning after the Fourth of July last year, his gaze immediately went to the two huge fists of bandages and gauze at the end of his forearms.
“I didn’t know what I had left,” said the 40- year- old San Jose resident. “So I tried to move my fingers, and I went, ‘ Wow. I don’t have any fingers.’ ”
Ortiz lost his right hand and all but two fingers on his left when a powerful mortar- style firework detonated unexpectedly at a Fourth of July celebration at his family’s home near Cassell Park.
Now, as the Bay Area enters the height of fireworks season, Ortiz added his own
experience to the multitude of official admonitions to resist the temptation of do- ityourself pyrotechnics.
“Sometimes your life changes in a split second,” the former trade carpenter said. “I was supposed to go to work the next day, and now I’m never going to show up to that job again. I still get up at 4 a. m., I just don’t go to work. I miss my job, I miss my friends there — I miss everything.”
South Bay fire and law enforcement officials, as well as city and county leaders around the Bay Area, are stressing how fireworks not only can harm you but are especially perilous when a four- year drought has left the landscape browned and eager to burn.
“There’s no excuse for anyone going off on their own and having a rogue display,” said Santa Clara County Supervisor Dave Cortese, pointing out that there are a host of professional shows throughout the area. “It’s those illegal displays that are causing us so many problems.”
While a handful of Bay Area cities — including Gilroy, Union City, Newark and Dublin — allow stateapproved “safe and sane” fireworks, they aren’t legal to light elsewhere . But officials said the main concern is from more powerful mortars and bombs found on the black market, which is open and ready for business around each Fourth of July and Chinese New Year.
In Oakland, a man was arrested after CHP officers discovered 70 pounds of illegal fireworks in his SUV during a traffic stop June 19. A recent sting by Alameda County authorities led to a raid in Gilroy that seized 100 pounds of explosive fireworks- making powder.
Contra Costa County Fire Marshal Robert Marshall said officials often find people selling fireworks via Craigslist postings.
“We meet the people, we buy the fireworks, we confiscate them and they suffer the legal consequences,” he said.
In 2014, Contra Costa fire officials confiscated about 2,500 pounds of illegal fireworks in a sting, he said. Three people were arrested.
That bust happened in Antioch during the weeklong lead- up to the Fourth, when everything ramps up. Alameda County officials said they make 98 percent of illegal fireworks busts leading up to the holiday. But sporadic explosive shows remain in check, officials said, until the sun goes down July 4. That’s showtime, when amateurs bring out all their professionalgrade pyrotechnics and light up the skies above residential blocks all around the Bay Area.
“On the Fourth of July itself, it’s not even manageable,” Marshall said. “On a normal day, a normal structure fire would get a number of resources. … On the Fourth of July, we don’t have the resources to do that because we’re chasing multiple structure fires and grass fires.”
Cal Fire officials also see a spike in fireworks- caused blazes around the holiday, spokesman Daniel Berlant said. Last year, about 300 fires were sparked by fireworks statewide and 8,500 acres burned. Overall, fireworkrelated blazes make up just 1 percent of summer fires, but they are the leading cause of fires during the week of the Fourth of July.
On July 4, 2014, fireworks sparked the 6,488acre Monticello Fire in Yolo County off Highway 28, Berlant said.
“And it’s not just fire, but also injuries,” he said.
Nationwide, more than 240 people visit the emergency room every day with fireworks- related injuries in the month of July, according to the U. S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. The South Bay fared worse than usual last year, with fingers lost in Sunnyvale, a mangled hand in Gilroy, and a father arrested after his 10- yearold son found his stash of illegal pyrotechnics and had a mishap that sent the boy to the hospital.
As for Ortiz, he was recently fitted with a cuttingedge bionic right hand, and Stanford doctors are going to craft a new left thumb using one of his toes.
Ortiz said he might someday go back to school to learn a new trade, but right now he’s waiting to get through his four surgeries, which begin later this month.
He acknowledged that fateful Fourth wasn’t his first fireworks show. “I’ve done it before, but that day just wasn’t my day,” he said.
Ortiz said he’s always loved the holiday, its patriotism and the country it stands for, but this year he wanted to go somewhere else, maybe on a trip to Baja California.
“I get depressed,” he said. “The Fourth is coming up, and that’s the day that changed my life forever. I’m lucky I didn’t die. My birthday is now the Fourth of July.”