Eye Health
Important Facts About Fireworks Eye Safety
American Academy of Ophthalmology
P.O. Box 7424, San Francisco, CA 94120

• Attend only professional fireworks displays. Don't ever let your children play with fireworks of any kind.
• Fireworks were responsible for 19 deaths in the first 10 months of 1999.
• Fireworks sent 6,300 people to the emergency room during the 1999 Fourth of July holiday period (June 23 to July 23).
• All fireworks are dangerous. Firecrackers, bottle rockets, sparklers and Roman candles account for most firework injuries.
• Protect your children. Don't entertain the family with fireworks. Forty percent of those injured last year were under the age of 14, and many of them were bystanders.
• Thirty percent of the injuries that occurred last year involved burns to hands, wrists and arms, and 20 percent of injuries were to the eyes.
• Ten percent of children injured by fireworks suffer permanent damage, such as the loss of an eye, finger or a hand.
• Sparklers burn as hot as 2,000 degrees, hot enough to melt gold. For children under the age of five, sparklers account for three-quarters of all fireworks injuries.
• Legal fireworks carry the name of the manufacturer, the words "Class C Common Fireworks," and a warning label. If these are missing, you should consider them illegal and extremely unsafe.
• If you find unexploded fireworks, don't touch them. Contact your local fire or police department immediately.