4th of July Safety Tips

When you think about the 4th of July, “You’re thinking parties, you’re thinking picnics, and parades.” Lee Health Injury Prevention Resource Coordinator Syndi Bultman said safety should also be top of mind. “Fireworks are a beautiful thing to see, everybody loves watching them, but they are explosives, and they really need to be handled by the people who know how to handle the big explosives.”

The Consumer Product Safety Commission said more than 15,000 people were treated in emergency departments for fireworks injuries in 2020. 66% of those injuries occurred in the month surrounding the 4th of July. “The most common place for people to get injured is their hands, their face, their eyes, and it’s burn injuries and shrapnel injuries from them exploding,” said Bultman.

Make sure you buy your fireworks from a reputable dealer, read the instructions, have a bucket of water nearby, pay attention to your surroundings, light them in a large open area, and only light them if you’re 100% sober. If an injury does occur call 911 and, “Grab whatever you can to cover that wound, and just press as hard as you can, and then get them here to the hospital. We want to stop the bleed because people can die from an arterial bleed in less than three minutes,” said Bultman.

Bultman also recommends you don’t let your kids play with sparklers. “Sparklers burn at 1800°, that’s enough to melt gold, so it can easily catch their clothes and hair on fire so we get a lot of burns from that.” Also be sure to keep a close eye on kids near pools, open water, and the grill. Bultman said it’s best to leave the fireworks show to the professionals. Tips so you can enjoy a safe holiday.


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