Case Study

-- When a teenager pulled on his trainers to go out, it would be the last time his family would see him alive.  Like most parents they had drummed it into their children the importance of being safe with fireworks.

Unfortunately, the 13-year-old, his older brother, and a friend failed to heed their warning.

The trio headed for a field near their north London home with a bag full of fireworks. The accident happened when a firework unexpectedly exploded and shot into the side of his neck, rupturing a main artery.   He suffered a brain haemorrhage and died instantly.

Not realising the severity of his brother's injury, he ran back home and told his dad, "there's been a terrible accident.  He has been injured."   They dashed back to the pitch black field where he was found on the ground encircled by people.

"I was expecting him to be injured, not unconscious with people trying to give him heart massage and the kiss of life," says his dad, "I remember looking at his face and although it was completely unmarked, I knew in my own heart that he had gone"

Ten minutes after arriving in hospital doctors broke the news that his dad deep down knew, but dreaded to hear.

"I had to phone my wife and she insisted I tell her over the phone what had happened.   It was awful and all quite blurry." Through tears, he explains, "the boys knew they shouldn't have been over there playing with fireworks.  We'd always told them about how dangerous it was but being teenage boys, they just didn't listen.

Our warnings didn't work."  Only now, nine months later, the family, which includes an 11-year-old daughter, are beginning to get back on with their lives although it's a terribly slow and painful process.  His dad says: "It was his 14th birthday a little while ago and we had to go to the cemetery to see him. That's a tragedy. We have lost the biggest treasure in our lives.  If we can save another family's grief, or a child suffering then something positive has come out of it.

I would tell other boys and parents, just look what can happen when fireworks fall into the wrong hands. Teenage boys think it's a bit of fun but it can cost them their lives."

A  Life Torn Apart

-- Imagine being the type of girl everyone wanted to date in high school. A former fashion model at local malls. A nurse.   Then imagine yourself going to a friend’s family picnic around the Fourth of July and lounging on a hammock.   Now imagine an 8-inch mortar round, a piece of illegal fireworks that someone set off, heading toward your 22-year-old head.   A loud boom. Then darkness.   You wake up in a hospital. You hear a Jamaican accent from the nurse, but you can’t see much of anything.   You know only that you’re groggy, that someone has told you you’ve lost an eye and will need a glass replacement, and that you don’t remember what happened.   This nightmare, described by the mother, is being lived by her daughter.   The tragedy began as a seemingly harmless holiday moment at a private residence.    "I will never feel my daughter’s butterfly kisses again," her voice shaking as she struggled to hold back tears, "because someone decided it had to be that way."  It was on July 1 when she was hit by the fireworks. The result was a complete loss of her left eye, severe damage to her right eye and damage to her face.   This week was her first out of the hospital and back with her   2-year-old son – it was the first week in a life they never anticipated.    "It has devastated us," said her aunt.   "She has been like a daughter to me. We’ve always been closer than aunt and niece."  She was transferred to a rehabilitation center and has no recollection of what happened. She is taking painkilling medicine.   While she has no memory of the incident, police offered an account.   At about 11 p.m. on July 1, she was at a picnic when she was hit by the fireworks.   Troopers have only basic information about the incident.  The accident involved illegal fireworks and it is under investigation.   The fireworks item that hit her was defective.   It exploded into pieces, one of which struck her on the left side of her face on the ridge of her forehead.   Along with the loss of her left eye, she has limited, foggy vision in her right eye, she has a small box of vision.     Doctors inserted 19 plates into her head to hold her shattered skull together.    She and her family are bothered that nobody has taken responsibility.   She has asked "Who did this to me?  Why would someone do this to me?’"    "I think knowing would ease a lot of her mental anguish and a lot of our mental anguish."   She is a hard-working, unselfish, compassionate person who loves children and senior citizens, who worked her way through nursing school,  graduating  and wanting to put her son through school when he is old enough.   "All things considered, she’s doing well,"    "Her main concern is that she wants to be home.    She says, ‘I want to get out of here. I have a son.’"    "She was an average kid who had everything going for her.  And some individual took that away, and that’s hard."    Her supervisor at the hospital spoke passionately about her, she worked there just six months.    "She is an excellent nurse."    "She is very compassionate and always smiling.  Everyone liked to work with her and patients would comment about how nice she is."   She hopes she can return to work if her right eye becomes strong enough in rehabilitation.

Case Study

-- Promising young player lost his chance to fulfil his footballing dream after playing with fireworks.   Having finished a training session the 15-year-old from Glasgow and some friends decided to let off fireworks in an adjoining field.   He put the firework in the grass and used his lighter.   But before he had chance to get away, it exploded, devastating his hand.   The explosion tore his thumb and next two fingers from his right hand, and ripped most of the flesh and muscle from the bone.   In a state of shock and badly injured, he ran to his sister’s house for help.   ‘He was in a terrible way mentally and physically," says his father. "We were all in shock."   He needed three, five-and-a-half hour operations to try and save his hand and doctors were pessimistic about the surgery being a success. The next four days were critical, but he was resilient and recovered well.   However, since the accident in October 2000, he has needed more than ten operations to rebuild his hand. Skin and muscle have been taken from all over his body, leaving him with scars down his back and sides.   He has also had to learn to use his other hand for simple, everyday tasks.   Since then the talented youngster’s dreams of becoming a professional footballer have fallen by the wayside, along with his passion for other sports such as golf, pool and swimming.   "He really misses playing sports and has lost a lot of confidence.  He isn’t the same boy.  Before he was happy and carefree, now he gets depressed and suffers mood swings," says his dad. "But it could have been worse.  He could have lost his eyes," he adds.    The boy just turned 18, life is currently very different to the one he had envisaged. Although he has a girlfriend his father says that his self esteem is not what it used to be.   "I have always been against messing around with fireworks," says his father. "The fireworks they got hold of were like bombs.    If people could see what myself and my family have been through, all the operations and heartache, that would put boys off playing with fireworks. Imagine finding your son in the middle of the night crying his heart out. These are the consequences that people should know.  If I could show my son’s hand to other children I don’t think they would pick up another firework. They need to see someone who has suffered, for it to hit home."   He always tell youngsters to keep away from fireworks.   These days he won’t go out of the house on November 5th.

-- A schoolboy nearly lost his hand following an accident with a banned firework last year. The 14-year-old suffered serious burns after the Chinese Cracker blew up as he held it. The explosion ripped open his hand and blasted off the tips of his thumb and two fingers.    After finding help in a nearby street the schoolboy was airlifted to the burns unit at Selly Oak Hospital, Birmingham, followed by his father.    "We were very shocked when we saw him. His hand was unrecognisable, it was like looking at a plate of raw meat, you could see the bones and tendons".    "Although it looked horrific right up until the moment I saw him go into theatre I still hoped they would be able to patch him up 100 per cent and he'd come out right as rain".   His hopes turned to fear when the two and a half hour operation dragged on for five and a half hours.    "That's when I started to worry that they were amputating his hand," says the company director.  Fortunately that was not the case and the three surgeons managed to save his hand using delicate microsurgery.    "After the operation I was in tears but they were tears of joy because we realised they'd managed to work a miracle.  He was extremely worried that he might lose his hand and had even asked whether he'd need a disabled badge when he was older.  He's an extremely lucky boy.  His hand is not disfigured and he has regained full use of it.  His thumb and fingers are shortened but the scarring on his palm and down the side of his fingers is hardly noticeable."    Now the 19-year-old teenager is able to play his favourite sports, golf and pool just as well as ever but knows that the accident has served to highlight the dangers of playing with fireworks.    "It was a prank that back-fired. The detonator was given to him by a friend who dared him to let it off.  He is a very normal sensible lad but like a lot of boys couldn't resist experimenting.    Afterwards he said he didn't think it could happen to him and that it just wasn't worth it. We all hope that the accident will prevent other boys from playing with fireworks."

-- Letting off fireworks on Halloween night proved to be an horrific experience for a teenager.   In a moonlit field next to an abandoned church the teenager and a bunch of friends gathered with an assortment of powerful fireworks. The teenager says: "I set off an air bomb, which was supposed to contain two explosions but only one went off.  Nothing happened.  So I went over to it.  I know they say never go back but I just didn't think.   I picked it up and turned round to speak to someone and it went off in my hand.  It was like holding a stick of dynamite.   I knew my hand was pretty bad.  My palm was split open and the pain was unbelievable. I wrapped my jumper around my arm to limit the blood flow to my hand and my friends drove to the nearest hospital."  At Mount Vernon Hospital, London, doctors warned the apprentice engineer, that they may have to amputate parts of his fingers.   The initial operation lasted four hours and involved removing the top joint of his index finger and two joints of his middle finger and reconnecting tendons in his thumb. The following day the teenager, 17, underwent 10 hour surgery, in which they took away his badly damaged thumb.   The teenager stayed in hospital for three months of complex surgery and painful physiotherapy.  He went without a thumb for eight months before undergoing a revolutionary operation to remove a toe and use it as a replacement thumb.    The operation was considered a success giving him back movement and feeling. Having become ambidextrous, the teenager is now able to use his right hand again.  In all he has had five operations, four of which were over 10 hours.    
After a year of hospital treatment the teenager returned to work and continued with his day release city and guilds college course in the same subject.   The teenager, says: "It was daunting at first having to relearn to do simple things and then there's the whole thing about what other people think about you. But they don't notice my hand as I wear a skin coloured pressure garment. "  The teenager, who is now 21, is back riding motorbikes, enjoys holidays with friends and tries not to let his injury stop him from leading a normal life.    "Teenagers like me who let off fireworks, think it will never happen to them.   But it does.  I show them my hand to make it sink in. That normally shocks them. If I can prevent one person from going through what I've been through then it will be worth it," says the teenager.    "I wish I'd never gone near fireworks.  I'm not scared of them but I give them a lot more respect now," he adds.